Stars offer Olympic trials preview in Toronto
Focus on technique ahead of results
On the last day before the Canadian Swimming Open at the Toronto Pam Am Sports Centre, Olympic butterfly champion Maggie Mac Neil put in a full day’s work doing media interviews and photo shoots before even hitting the pool for a late afternoon training session.
“Can’t forget that,” she said, laughing.
Penny Oleksiak, Canada’s most decorated Olympian who is just coming back to racing after a series of injuries, landed at Pearson Airport from her California training base just a few hours before her morning session in the pool.
And 17-year-old swimming sensation Summer McIntosh got to enjoy what her team called a training “break.”
“The day before the meet, we didn’t go two full practices,” said Chris Webb, who is part of her coaching team in Sarasota, Fla. Does one practice count as a break? “Pretty much.”
Starting Wednesday, these stars, and others looking to make Canada’s Paris teams at the Olympic and Paralympic trials next month, will be looking for the same things over the four-day Canadian Open — race repetitions and a valuable check on where they are in the preparation process.
“It’s the moment to either confirm that everything’s on track or see what needs to be slightly tweaked — and you still have time to do that,” said Ryan Mallette, the head coach at Swimming Canada’s high-performance centre in Toronto.
McIntosh, who set two world records the last time she raced in Toronto, is set to compete in seven races covering all four strokes and ranging in distances from 50 to 200 metres. Mac Neil, a butterfly specialist, is also swimming in freestyle and backstroke events and Oleksiak is down for all three freestyle distances.
Swimmers always want to go fast when they race but it’s not the podium results at this event that matter the most, Mac Neil said.
“I want to swim fast and do well but I’m also trying to focus more on the technical elements because I had such limited racing opportunities this year … Just trying to put it all together to get a glimpse of what’s expected at trials,” she said. “And, obviously, it’s going to be great because the trials are here now.”
Swimming Canada announced Monday that the national swimming trials, scheduled for May 13-19, would be moved to Toronto because of fire damage at Montreal’s Olympic pool.
“It’s nice to be back in Toronto,” said Oleksiak, the 23-year-old Toronto native who left for a new training base in Southern California last year to prepare for Paris.
Oleksiak raced in March for the first time in nearly a year after struggling with a series of injuries dating back to knee surgery in 2022.
“Honestly, I’m just here to kind of come in and race and get into a race mindset,” Oleksiak said.
The Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre is known to be a fast pool. McIntosh set world records in the 400 freestyle and 400 medley a year ago essentially swimming against herself and the clock.
“Never say never,” John Atkinson, Canada’s high performance director, said about the possibility of more records this week. But he likened this event to the final testing sessions Formula One cars go through before a Grand Prix.
“What are they looking at (technically)? For each person it can be something different. But, of course, they all want to improve and progress from where they were previously.”