Canadian Swimmers Join In and Nominate The Dutch For ‘Don’t Rush’ Challenge

The Canadians have become the most recent national team to complete the ‘Don’t Rush’ video challenge. The trend features swimmers dressed in formal or athletic clothing tapping the camera with a swim cap which when removed reveals an outfit change to a swimsuit. The swimmer then throws the cap out of the frame, which the next swimmer then “catches” and begins their own sequence.

The trend is growing in popularity among national swim teams. You can see the Russians, French, and Polish teams complete the challenge here. Along with posting their own video, some countries have also nominated fellow national teams. Previously, the Russians nominated the Americans, the Polish nominated Australia. The Canadians, following suit, have nominated the Dutch.

Canada’s video features 23 members of the country’s roster at the 2019 World Swimming Championships in Gwangju, South Korea. Among them were the country’s two gold medalists from the meet; Maggie MacNeil (100 fly) and Kylie Masse (100 back).

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAIrjT-gwM7/

Joining Masse and MacNeil were 2016 Olympians Penny Oleksiak, Taylor Ruck, Emily Overholt, Kierra Smith, Sydney Pickrem, Markus Thormeyer, Yuri Kisil, and Mack Darragh, along with other recent international medalists such as Kayla Sanchez, Rebecca Smith, Kelsey Wog, Richard Funk, and Eric Hedlin.

Two of Canada’s younger national teamers, Emma O’Cronin and Cole Pratt also made an appearance, representing the country’s up and coming group of teens. O’Croinin and Pratt both pulled double duty for Canada last summer by attending both World Championships and World Junior Championships. At the latter, Pratt was a part of Canada’s bronze medal 4×100 medley relay. O’Croinin on the other hand, picked up 4×200 bronze at World Championships, along with a World Junior silver in 400 free, bronze in the 200 free and bronze in the 4×200 relay.

Following a breakout Olympic performance in 2016, Canada was set to send a strong contingent of athletes to Tokyo 2020. Canadian Olympic Trials were set to be held in early April of 2020 but, along with the Games, were pushed to next year. As outlined in a previous post, Canadian swimming has a few exciting storylines to follow as we head into another Olympic year.

Among those storylines:

• 2012 100 freestyle Olympic bronze medalist Brent Hayden’s comeback
• 2019 world champion Maggie MacNeil‘s presumptive Olympic debut and medal potential
• An increasing number of international threats in the sprint free and backstrokes – Oleksiak, Ruck, Sanchez, Smith, Masse, Jade Hanah, Danielle Hanus

Canadian Olympic Trials have since been rescheduled and will now be held from April 7-11, 2021.