Swimming Canada postpones April trials
It’s John Atkinson’s job to know what Canada’s Olympic swimming team will look like even before the trials for Tokyo 2020 are held.
As the high performance director for Swimming Canada, he has to be on top of everything. So, when Atkinson says the Canadian team will be comprised of more than 20 athletes and should be competing for three to six medals in Tokyo — if in fact the Games go ahead despite the COVID-19 pandemic — you can take that to the bank.
But that’s a pretty large if at this point. Swimming Canada on Tuesday postponed its open water trials, which were due to be conducted April 25 and 26 on Grand Cayman Island. The trials would have sent Olympic hopefuls to the FINA Olympic marathon swim qualifier, set for May 30 and 31 in Fukuoka, Japan.
“Swimming Canada is evaluating an alternate qualification path should the qualifier be held and travel to Japan deemed safe,” the organization said in a release.
The open water trials were cancelled due to Ottawa’s advisory on travel abroad and the Cayman Islands’ restriction on gatherings of more than 50 people.
Swimming Canada had previously postponed pool trials that had been scheduled for March 30 to April 5 in Toronto, and is “evaluating contingency plans that may allow for a pool trials to be held in late June.”
The situation is obviously fluid and Atkinson expressed concern that too much uncertainty is making a bad situation worse.
“As the International Olympic Committee has said, it is committed to holding the Games as scheduled, and our latest information from FINA is that the qualifiers will be held as scheduled, we continue to plan for Olympic qualification — both in the pool and in marathon swimming,” Atkinson said in the release.
“We must also recognize the window to get things done is getting smaller every day. I hope that FINA and ultimately the IOC are looking at the situation of athletes who are now unable to train around the world, the strain in many countries on their health systems, and societies in various stages of lockdown. Narrowing the window in which qualification needs to take place for athletes who have dedicated years of their life to pursuing excellence is creating additional uncertainty and stress in this very difficult world situation.”