Why are those Canadians so good in open water swimming?
Even with a short summer and cold water nearly year-round, Canadian swimmers leave their mark on the open water swimming world. From Cliff Lumsdon to Cindy Nicholas to Vicki Keith and Christine Cossette, Canada has always been a force in the open bodies of water around the globe.
But even as the pace and fury of competitive open water swimming increases, Swimming Canada seems to keep getting better and better.
Swimming Canada’s High Performance Director John Atkinson was pleased with Eric Hedlin‘s silver-medal performance in the 5 km race, Richard Weinberger‘s 5th-place finish in 10 km, and Philippe Guertin‘s 9th-place finish in the 25 km at the recent FINA World Championships. “Eric Hedlin winning a silver medal in open water to go along with the three medals that came from the pool for four medals overall for Canada I think is exceptional. The open water team made significant improvement since the last world championships in Shanghai in 2011 and we had three men who made top 10 finishes. If you look at the overall points in open water, we tied for seventh but if you narrow it down and look at the men’s side we were actually third nation in the point scores.”
Top 3, an exceptional achievement for any country and well done for Canada.
Upper photo of Eric Hedlin at the end of the 5 km world championship race courtesy of Swimming Canada/Ian MacNicol.
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