Olympic Swimming Trials: Hayden makes triumphant return, McIntosh continues to shine
Summer McIntosh emerged as a name to watch after winning the women’s 200m freestyle on Sunday night, and she impressed once again on Monday at the Olympic Swimming Trials presented by Bell.
In the first final of the day McIntosh lined up for the women’s 800m freestyle, winning the 16-lap race with a time of 8:29.48. With that pace, McIntosh shaved 19 seconds off her previous best in the 800m, finishing four seconds under the Olympic qualifying time. It was also within 10 seconds of Brittany MacLean‘s Canadian record set in 2014.
The 14-year-old is now qualified to be nominated for two races at Tokyo 2020: the 800m and 200m freestyles.
They saved one of the best races for last as the oldest and youngest members of the team, Brent Hayden and Joshua Liendo, took the men’s 50m freestyle final down to the wire. 37-year-old Hayden finished first with a time of 21.82s while 18-year-old Liendo followed right behind in second at 21.90s. Both men qualified for nomination, narrowly beating out the Olympic standard time of 22.01s.
The result marked Liendo’s second nomination for Tokyo following his victory in the men’s 100m butterfly on Saturday. Meanwhile Hayden, who came out of a seven-year retirement in 2019, is set to make his first Olympic appearance since winning a bronze medal at London 2012.
We were treated to another breathtaking race in the women’s 200m individual medley, topped off by a photo finish. Already qualified for Tokyo, Sydney Pickrem took first with a time of 2:09.24, less than a second off her national record set in 2019.
The second spot for Olympic nomination came down to mere milliseconds as Kelsey Wog and Bailey Andison pushed to beat the qualifying mark of 2:12.56. Wog edged out Andison by 0.27s, finishing in 2:10.21 to qualify for nomination to Tokyo. The 22-year-old also qualified for nomination in the women’s 100m breaststroke on Sunday.
Finlay Knox took gold in the men’s 200m individual medley final, qualifying for nomination with a time of 1:58.07. The 20-year-old also bested his previous national record of 1:58.88 which he set just six weeks ago at the High Performance Time Trials.
It seemed to be a night for photo finishes as we saw another in the women’s 50m freestyle final. Kayla Sanchez placed first with a time of 24.68s, a mere 0.09s under the Olympic qualifying time. Coming off shoulder surgery last October, the future is looking bright for the 20-year-old from Scarborough, Ontario.
Eric Brown took first in the men’s 1500m freestyle final with a time of 15:19.69, a 42 second improvement over his previous best. Unfortunately the 18-year-old’s time was not good enough to meet the Olympic qualifying standard of 15:00.99.
The Olympic Swimming Trials presented by Bell continue tomorrow as Canada’s top swimmers have two more days to qualify for Tokyo.