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Disclaimer: Swim of the Week is not meant to be a conclusive selection of the best overall swim of the week, but rather one Featured Swim to be explored in deeper detail. The Swim of the Week is an opportunity to take a closer look at the context of one of the many fast swims this week, perhaps a swim that slipped through the cracks as others grabbed the headlines, or a race we didn’t get to examine as closely in the flood of weekly meets.
Ella Jansen wasted no time in carrying her late-2022 momentum forward into the new year, delivering a very impressive double during Thursday night finals from the Pro Swim Series stop in Knoxville.
The 17-year-old rising Canadian talent started things off in the women’s 200 freestyle, tying for fourth place with American star Katie Grimes in 1:59.08, just 15 one-hundredths shy of her personal best time (1:58.93) set in March 2022.
It was less than 50 minutes later that Jansen took to the blocks in the final of the women’s 100 fly, and she came through with a dominant victory.
The Etobicoke Swimming product and University of Tennessee commit had the fastest split in the field on both the opening (27.78) and closing 50s (31.14) to win by nearly a second in 58.92, knocking more than three-tenths off her personal best time of 59.27, also set last March.
Split Comparison
| Jansen, March 2022 | Jansen, January 2023 |
| 27.85 | 27.78 |
| 59.27 (31.42) | 58.92 (31.14) |
Although she’s typically been known as more of a freestyle/IM specialist, Jansen now ranks fifth all-time in the Canadian girls’ 15-17 age group, trailing some well-established names—all of whom have represented Canada in the 100 fly at either the Olympics and/or World Championships
Canadian Girls’ 15-17 All-Time Rankings, 100 Butterfly (LCM)
- Penny Oleksiak (Toronto Swim Club), 56.46 – 2016 Olympic Games
- Noemie Thomas (UBC Dolphins Swim Club), 57.96 – 2013 Fran Crippen Meet
- Katerine Savard (Club De Natation CSQ), 57.97 – 2011 World Trials
- Rebecca Smith (Scarborough Swim Club), 58.07 – 2017 World Junior Championships
- Ella Jansen (Etobicoke Swim Club), 58.92 – 2023 Pro Swim Series – Knoxville
- Hanna Henderson (Etobicoke Swim Club), 59.06 – 2019 World Junior Championships
- Summer McIntosh (Etobicoke Swim Club), 59.28 – 2022 Souther Zone Section
- Mabel Zavaros (Oakville Aquatic Club), 59.29 – 2017 Pro Swim Series – Atlanta
- Maggie MacNeil (London Aquatic Club), 59.54 – 2017 Mel Zajac International
- Hannah Genich (Scarborough Swim Club), 59.69 – 2016 ASA Summer Championships
After making a pair of individual finals last summer at the Commonwealth Games, Jansen had a phenomenal performance in short course meters at the Ontario Junior International meet in mid-December, most notably producing a blistering time of 1:53.35 in the 200 free, narrowly trailing Taylor Ruck (1:52.50), Kayla Sanchez (1:52.59), Summer McIntosh (1:52.63) and Rebecca Smith (1:52.99) in the Canadian girls’ 15-17 all-time rankings. Jansen also swam a PB of 8:16.36 in the 800 free to rank second all-time among Canadians behind McIntosh (8:07.12).
On Friday, Jansen advanced fourth into the final of the women’s 200 fly (2:14.19) in Knoxville, and is also scheduled to swim the 400 free at the end of the session.
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Rewatching her fly swims—I think she has the best stroke out of any of the flyers Kredich will have worked with: Brown, Magnusen, Banic. And all three of those girls held the American record at some point! She’ll overlap with Walshe and Mrosinski for a year and our distance group is thriving. Tons of options for her NCAA lineup but man what a weapon!
Is it really fair to call Ella “Etobicoke Swimming product” whiteout any mentioning that she is training in HPC Ontario under Coach Ryan for a very long time already? What’s even funnier, Ella is swimming all her Pro Swim Series races wearing Ontario cap, but Swimswam still decides to use her pic with ESWIM cap :-)). Of course, go, ESWIM, go. I’m all pro-club, but come on 🙂
I think she’ll be on Canada’s 4×2 team this summer.
What a talent!! Scary to think what she can do with those Tennessee underwaters.