Swimming Canada has moved its Tokyo 2020 Olympic Trials meet to June 19-23, athletes were told in a conference call on Wednesday. The move comes after Ontario introduced another stay-at-home order and declared a third state of emergency earlier this month amid a rise in new coronavirus cases.
The most recent Trials dates were from May 24-28, with a very limited selection of athletes invited. A high-performance test event scheduled for early May has been canceled.
For now, officials are hoping to continue to hold the meet at the country’s newest Olympic caliber pool, the Toronto Pan Am Sports Center, and have booked those dates, they are exploring other options in case local regulations won’t allow hosting of the meet. While the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta have been ruled out as hosts, one of two big pools in Montreal and the Winnipeg Pan Am Sports Centre are potential alternatives capable of hosting the meet.
Swimming Canada says that if they can’t find a suitable host, their next plan would be to look at options outside of the country. While the Canadian government doesn’t want the team chosen outside of the country, Swimming Canada says that they are fighting for the chance to pick a team in the pool, rather than on paper.
Athletes were told that choosing a team ‘on paper,’ based on the best guess from prior results, was still a last resort.
Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories.
The Paralympic Swimming Trials have now been separated from the Olympic Trials. The meet is still being planned as a timed-finals event, a plan that drew criticism when announced earlier this year. The Canadian men still don’t have Olympic relays qualified, so will need an Olympic-qualifying event, like those Trials, to earn their “wildcard” slots as one of the top 4 teams that didn’t place in the top 12 at the 2019 World Championships.
The six swimmers pre-selected to the team when Trials were originally moved from April to May continue to be pre-selected:
- Kylie Masse – women’s 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke
- Maggie MacNeil – women’s 100 butterfly
- Sydney Pickrem – women’s 200 breaststroke, 200 IM, 400 IM
- Penny Oleksiak – women’s 200 freestyle
- Taylor Ruck – women’s 100 freestyle
- Markus Thormeyer – men’s 200 backstroke
In 2020, Swimming Canada was among the first nations to alter its Olympic selection in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. By March 13, Canada had announced that its Olympic and Paralympic Swimming Trials would be either postponed or canceled due to the pandemic. About a week or so later, the Canadian Olympic Committee became the first national Olympic committee to declare it would not participate in the Tokyo Olympics, at that point still scheduled to begin in July of 2020.
The Olympics themselves were later postponed one year. Swimming Canada rescheduled and reformatted its Olympic and Paralympic Swimming Trials, paring down the meet to feature just 20 invited swimmers per event. The meet was originally scheduled for April 7-11 of 2021, but earlier this year, Swimming Canada again postponed the meet, this time to May 24-28. A second Olympic-qualifying invitational will take place on June 21-23. Those two Olympic selection events were once again thrown into doubt this month, though, by a COVID-19 lockdown in Ontario.
Canada is currently ramping up its vaccine program. Canada does not have any domestic vaccine production, and so is relying on vaccines from its allies, including the U.S., to emerge from the pandemic. Last month, the U.S. pledged to share 4 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine with Mexico and Canada. That vaccine has been approved in those countries, but not in the United States.
American president Joe Biden also pledged this week to release another 60 million doses, but did not say where to.
Most of Canada’s vaccine supply is coming from Europe.
At its current pace, according to Bloomberg data, the country is still 5 months away from what most experts believe would be a “herd immunity” level, though the 464,000 reported doses on Monday is the most the country has done in one day.
So far, the country has given enough vaccines to cover around 16.7% of the population of 37.59 million.
Nationally, the number of new cases have begun to recede a little from their peaks earlier in the month. Cases are currently about 35% higher than their neighbors to the south in the United States, controlling for population.
The decision to postpone trials again comes a week after Swimming Canada issued a statement saying that they felt their “robust safety” protocols were sufficient but that they “understand the concerns and…are seeking more information to make the best decision possible.”
A breakout 2016 Olympic Games for Canada, led by its women’s team, resulted in 6 total medals: 1 gold, 1 silver, and 4 bronze.
The Olympic qualifying period closes on June 27, 2021. Canada would join countries like the U.S. and Australia as having Olympic Trials events butting up against the end of that qualifying period.
Nice picture Swim Canada uses in their announcement. I am sure most swimmers are not smiling running around with the same hand gestures. Oh wait these are swimmers from the High Performance center in Toronto. No wonder they are smiling….. they get to proceed with there Olympic dreams in a privledged setting. Now I get it
This is not the Swimming Canada announcement. We are not Swimming Canada.
But that is the picture Swim Canada used on there facebook page…I assume the picture was taken from the Swim Canada official announcement. Maybe I’m wrong. Still not how most people feel about this announcement.
I highly doubt that Swimming Canada used this picture on their Facebook page, as it was taken by our staff photographer, and they don’t have the rights to use it. This is the post on their FB page, with a different image:
https://www.facebook.com/SwimmingCanada/posts/10159190213724854?__cft__%5B0%5D=AZVV7eOzrlx3sSeGs5awYFQuf-72kqKRNrsna5kXO9QqT9bjH8BihVOaY2_RZFrvlXdKXBsh_3yk_oAOdQxn1EMtVXO4xXwr-QjZW19Rs9lT1IMKoGEQ7uoMjTB8_gYTvgzqdQ7hyx8wCkziWGZ2_RV1&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R
My mistake. Still I personally think that the picture sends the wrong message. My opinion
It’s already a much reduced team, given that so many swimmers had no chance to prove themselves this year. Lots of talent left on the sidelines with swim canada picking winners and losers.
Oh Canada
Dick has been very quiet. This & the Diving Australia decision not to go to the WCup & get more Qhal spots seems ominous . What do they know? Likely nothing but these are both very defensive moves .from nations who are part of the Olympic In Crowd.
I am wondering how Ruck’s training is going. How does the lack of racing affect training in the lead up to the big dance. I feel fairly confident that Maggie McNeil will be ready to rock the world come Tokyo. What about the other talented Canadian swimmers?
Taylor Ruck wasn’t preselected for 200free. Does it mean that she has no plans to compete in this event in Tokyo?
But Oleksiak is preselected for this event even having slower personal best than Ruck has. I don’t understand this logic.
There is no logic, if Swim Canada was smart they would have scheduled trials in Saskatoon but they can’t because the pool does not meet the criteria imposed by Swim Canada to host a trials event (only major cities with lots of covid have the pools for this). If I were Swim Canada I would realized that maybe in the middle of a pandemic picking pools in the most densely populated areas would not be wise……. Florida trials here we come baby!!!!
How would that make them smart if they can’t do it for the reasons you say…?
SNC preselection criteria = finalist at 2019 Worlds, as most recent times vs. pbs done 2018 or before. If there were 2 Canadians in a 2019 World final only 1 spot was secured for preselection. So yes, Ruck can still make team for 200 free and Oleksiak in 100 free and of course relays too.
They preselected swimmers in events they made finals in at world champs. Ruck scratched the event. Same reason the defending Olympic co-champ (Oleksiak) wasn’t pre-selected for the 100 free
Does it mean that Ruck isn’t going to race 100FR and Oleksiak 200FR events at Trials and we will have no idea what form they are in those events until Olympic Games?
My guess is top Canadian swimmers will race best events given opportunity even if already named in an event. Neither Ruck/Oleksiak participated in ISL/NCAA, so no official times in over a year. Elite top tier athletes in other sports in Canada are going outside country to compete and not a bad idea for those swimmers already named to team and meet in Tokyo. Otherwise if SNC ends up a handpicking team, the Olympics will be the first completion since March 2020.
“Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories.” LOL
They should do the trials in the US. This eliminates all the concerns for these athletes on travel restrictions. They can train to peek and then go and compete then just do the quarantine on return. Lots of great pools in the US! Orlando, Indianapolis, Chicago. Then they could let all the qualifiers compete instead of just top 20 or what is likely to be just top 10 soon or maybe just paper swimmers. Parents and swimmers need to start demanding this to swim canada imo.