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.
Canada’s Cole Pratt is heating up at the right time, with career-bests in all three backstrokes leading up to Canadian Olympic Trials.
Pratt went 25.56 in the 50 back, 53.81 in the 100 back, and 1:57.96 in the 200 back at last week’s test event in Calgary. All three times put him in the ballpark of Canada’s national records in what should be a fierce competition for Olympic berths and medley relay spots later this month.
Pratt’s previous best time in the 100 back was a 54.63 from 2019. His big drop this week put him under the FINA A cut, and just half a second off the national record of 53.35 held by Markus Thormeyer.
In the 200 back, Pratt broke 1:58 for the first time, taking his best from 1:58.07 to 1:57.96. He’s also now exactly one second off Thormeyer’s national 200 back record.
And in the 50 back, Pratt went 25.56, taking three-tenths off his 2019 career-best swim of 25.87. Pratt is four-tenths off the national record there, though the 50 back isn’t an Olympic event and probably won’t be a focus for Pratt the rest of this summer.