A platypus helps Canada win
Disney character keeps artistic swimmers calm as they defend duet gold
Jacqueline Simoneau and Claudia Holzner developed a pre-swim routine to calm their nerves when they joined forces as an artistic swimming tandem.
It involves a declaration of trust and a reference to a Disney character. And it seems to be working. Simoneau, of Chambly, Que., and Calgary’s Holzner combined to defend Canada’s artistic swimming duet title Wednesday at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, and earned Canada a spot at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the process.
The Canadian tandem finished first with a total score of 180.0343 points.
Mexico was second with 174.3661 points, and the United States third with 170.6698 points.
“It was such a special moment,” Holzner said.
“Before we swam, our coach (Gabor Szauder) was like, ‘Jackie, go for a second Olympics,’ and ‘Claudia, become an Olympian.’”
Simoneau and Holzner, who were both members of Canada’s gold-medal winning team entry at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto, started swimming together as a duet in 2017.
Simoneau said she and Holzner came up with a unique preswim routine the moment their partnership was formed.
“We hold each other’s hands and we look each other in the eye and we say, ‘I trust you.’ And then there’s a secret word that we say right before we go.
“We came up with this the moment we started swimming together. It’s a ridiculous word, but for us it just means having a calm confidence.
“It’s Perry. Perry the platypus. It’s a TV character on the Disney show Phineas and Ferb.”
Later Wednesday, gymnast Ellie Black of Halifax added to her record Pan Am medal haul with a silver medal in the women’s beam event, her fifth medal this year.
There was more good news for Canada, however, with Brooklyn Moors of Cambridge winning gold.
EQUESTRIAN: Tina Irwin of Stouffville, riding Laurencio, took silver in individual dressage with a score of 77.780. Sarah Lockman of the U.S. won gold with 78.980.
Irwin was part of Canada’s squad that won gold in the team dressage event on Monday and earned a berth at the 2020 Games.
SQUASH: The men’s squash team of Montreal’s Shawn DeLierre, Nick Sachvie of St. Catharines and Calgary’s Andrew Schnell picked up a bronze medal after losing 2-0 to Colombia in the semifinals. The Canadian women played the United States for gold later Wednesday. That guaranteed Canada would win a record seven squash medals at one Pan Am Games.
BADMINTON: Michelle Li of Markham advanced to the women’s semifinals with a 2-0 (21-9, 26-24) win over Mexico’s Haramara Gaitan. Toronto’s Brian Yang defeated Osleni Gurrero of Cuba 2-1(21-10,15-21, 21-13) to advance to the men’s semifinals. Toronto’s Rachel Honderich and Kristen Tsai of Surrey, B.C., won their women’s doubles quarterfinal 2-0 over a team from Peru.