Championships conclude

The World Championships concluded this morning for me with my last swim of the meet swimming the breaststroke leg of the 4×100 medley relay for Canada. I was unfortunately feeling a little under the weather after only getting 3 hours of sleep the night before, but still had a solid split of 58.5 in the relay, which was about the same as my individual time from the 100 breast. We knew it was going to be a fast morning, and we were going to have to be on our best to advance to the finals. We came up just short placing 9th, not advancing to the finals by less than a second. It was really hard to watch the relay tonight knowing we were so close to making it.

On Saturday, I swam the 50 breast in a 27.53 placing 24th. It was a really competitive field that I was hoping to make a semi-final swim, but just didn’t have quite enough speed to advance either. I am not too worried about the 50 since it is not an Olympic event, but it would have been fun to race again at night on the big stage.

On Friday, I swam the 200 breast in an unseeded heat knowing I was going to have to post a fast time early on to advance to the final 8 (there is no semi-finals for the 200). I took out the race well and was out at the 100 in a 1:01.0, just off of what I was hoping to be out in, and build the next 50 hoping to have a fast last 50 and be around a 2:06 low. But, I didn’t have the same endurance I usually do coming home and faded the last 25 finishing second in my heat behind my teammate in a time of 2:08.35 to place 18th in the world.

Although, I was hoping to make some more final swims and swim faster, it was a great experience competing against the best in the world on this stage. I will be heading to a see my family on a short vacation in southern Africa over the holidays. I wish you all the best holiday with your families and a Merry Christmas. I will try to write another post about the amazing swimming venue if I get some time in the next couple of days.

View lots of pictures of the Canadian team’s adventures here: