The 2021 Canadian Olympic Trials will in fact take place in Toronto, Swimming Canada confirmed on Thursday.
The meet has been pushed back on two separate occasions, with an announcement coming in late April that it would be postponed from May 24-28 to June 19-23, due in part to a stay-at-home order implemented in Ontario last month.
When announcing that the meet would be held in June, due to the restrictions in Ontario, Swimming Canada had also started exploring potential replacement locations, including Montreal and Winnipeg.
Now, after “reviewing multiple options and scenarios,” Swimming Canada confirms the meet will remain at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre (TPASC), June 19-23.
“The organization has explored several options, including holding the Trials elsewhere in North America,” said Swimming Canada CEO Ahmed El-Awadi.
“Each scenario comes with its own positive and negative factors, but we believe holding Olympic Trials in Canada, at our premier pool in the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre, is the best option.”
Top Canadian swimmers based in Ontario got their first chance to compete amongst one another for the first time in a long time at a High Performance Time Trial on May 7-8, which was also held at TPASC.
“We have confirmation from Toronto Public Health that the event can proceed under the High Performance Exemption implemented by the Government of Ontario,” added El-Awadi. “We are working with our partners at the City of Toronto and Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre to ensure this will be a safe event that gives us the opportunity to select the best team to represent Canada.”
In December it was announced that the plan for the previously scheduled April trials would be timed finals only. Now, Swimming Canada says the objective is to have prelims and finals for 50, 100 and 200-meter races, and timed finals for the 400s and up.
Swimming Canada also announced that the swimmers who qualify for the Olympics will have a training camp at the High Performance Centre – Vancouver prior to flying to Tokyo.
As an athlete slated to compete at the trials. Swim Canada has been useless in helping the athletes and has disregarded the impact that this has had on our mental health
Not just at the top but how many clubs across Canada will be gone forever.Its a shame because Canadian swimming was coming on.I can’t see how Swim Canada orSwim Ontario have done anything for any level of swimmer.
I’ll say this, something fishy is going on. Clearly some athletes were told in advance of the trials being in Toronto. Peep Markus Thormeyer’s Instagram story.
Nothing to do with OT. There is another Time trial happening for those on the trials invite list. better than the +1.5% nonsense but swim canada still showing bias to HPC-VAN and HPC-ON. That being said happy that these athletes get to race.
Canadian Swimming has been unable to think outside the box in order to include and support the maximum number of those eligible to swim at trials.
True!
I agree..Swim Canada doesn’t, seem to be capable of any kind of creativity in a bad situation.
Like that all the time..
There are Canadian swimmers competing in the U.S.A. who cannot cross the border without having to quarantine.Would be nice if they could compete in American trials and make their times available for consideration..no?
It makes sense……but does it make sense to the big wigs? who knows
Canadian swimmers in the US wouldn’t be able to swim past prelims at US Olympic Trials because it would potentially keep an American from getting to swim semifinals/finals at the one and only opportunity to qualify for the US Olympic Team.
Also, if someone at Canadian Trials has to swim prelims/finals and make the qualifying time in finals, it’s not fair to them that someone in the US could essentially time trial a spot on the Olympic team in one swim.
I agree with your first point. The second point however has to do with fairness which can be argued either and any way. Fairness will not be the theme for the Canadian Olympic trials this year no matter how you look at it.
I wonder how many high end swimmers there are still there? Javier Acevedo would be one. Maggie and Sidney are in Toronto… Others??
“In addition, due to covid, we only be allowing athletes currently at a high performance centre to compete.”
they may need to reduce numbers attending….maybe. ……I said maybe
We’ll see. Doesn’t say the trials will go on for sure just says that the trial will not take place anywhere else but will remain in Toronto ( if allowed). Nice to see that they are doing heat and finals now….maybe.