Island Swimming makes medal mark in Barcelona
From Elk Lake Drive to Barcelona, there doesn’t seem to be any stopping the tsunami that has rolled out of Saanich Commonwealth Place.
Victoria Academy of Swimming/Island Swimming is matching, if not topping, what entire nations are accomplishing at the 2013 FINA world aquatics championships in the Catalan capital.
The club won its third medal of the world championships for Canada when Hilary Caldwell lowered the Canadian record for the third time in two days in winning bronze Saturday in the women’s 200-metre backstroke. Olympic champion and world recordholder Missy Franklin of the U.S. won gold in a world championships record 2:04.76, while Belinda Hocking of Australia (2:06.66) barely outreached Caldwell (2:06.80) to the wall for silver
Victoria Academy/Island Swimming has accounted for all three swimming medals, and half of the six overall Canadian medals (including three from Quebec divers), in the 2013 world aquatics championships.
Victoria Academy/Island Swimming performers Ryan Cochrane, with bronze in the men’s 800-metre freestyle, and Eric Hedlin, with his breakout silver in the men’s open-water 5K, won their medals earlier in the meet.
Cochrane, two-time Olympic medallist in the 1,500-metre freestyle and Canada’s most decorated individual. swimmer ever at the world championships with five, is favoured for another medal today when he races in the 1,500 final. The Islander qualified second Saturday (14:55.15) behind Olympic champion and world record holder Sun Yang of China (14:54.65). The positions mirrored last year’s plac- ings in the 2012 London Summer Olympics and from the last world championships in 2011 at Shanghai.
“I’m still vying for that top spot. I still want to hear O Canada, and that’s what continues to drive me year after year,” Cochrane said in a statement.
Clubmate Caldwell, the White Rock native whose emergence on the world scene coincided with her move to the Victoria Academy, was soaking in her stunning breakthrough medal.
“It’s pretty exciting. I don’t know if it’s quite sunk in yet, actually, but it’s pretty cool to be up there and with the whole crowd and stuff,” Caldwell said in a statement.
Caldwell’s performance was all the more remarkable in that she never made it out of the qualifying rounds of the London Olympics and failed to qualify for the worlds in the 100metre backstroke, which is her stronger event.