Bronze for Savard at FINA World Cup

SINGAPORE — Olympic medallist Katerine Savard of Pont-Rouge, Que., near Quebec City, won the bronze medal on Friday in the women’s 100-metre butterfly at a FINA World Cup swimming competition.

Katinka Hosszu of Hungary, a triple Olympic champion at the Rio Games, took the gold in 56.02 seconds, Jeannette Ottesen of Denmark was second in 56.08.

Savard, first in the preliminaries, followed in third in 57.24.

“I’m very pleased with the result,” said Savard. “This was my first international race since the Olympics and my first 100-m fly since the trials and I really didn’t know what to expect. It was great to be back racing again.”

The World Cup events are short course events which means the swimmers turn every 25 metres instead of every 50 like at the Olympics. The world short course championships will be held in Windsor, Dec. 6-11.

“I’ll be swimming several events at the worlds so these World Cups are really good preparation,” said Savard, who’ll also compete at the upcoming World Cups in Tokyo and Hong Kong. “My goal is to keep progressing.”

Hilary Caldwell of White Rock, B.C., and Toronto’s Michelle Williams, also medallists in Rio, posted fourth place finishes on Friday.

Williams was second in the women’s 50-m freestyle heats and just missed the podium in the final by 0.14 seconds.

Caldwell improved from fifth after the preliminaries.

Other Canadian finalists Friday were Rachel Nicol of Lethbridge, Alta., sixth in the women’s 100-m breaststroke and Nicolaas Dekker of Richmond, B.C. eighth in the men’s 200-m butterfly.