Mix of experience and youth seeks podium
GLASGOW, Scotland – National team veteran Audrey Lacroix will be looking for a medal at her third straight Commonwealth Games, while 20-year-old Brittany MacLean is aiming for her first individual hardware.
Lacroix, 30, enters tonight’s 200-metre butterfly final with the third-fastest qualifying time after a heat swim of 2:09.58 in the morning. The Pont-Rouge, Que., native, who is the returning silver medallist in the event, also won a bronze in the 100 at the 2006 Games.
“I backed off a little bit on the last 50, I didn’t need to go that hard. I’m keeping my energy for tonight. That was the plan and it felt really good. I was able to do a nice race without really pushing it and that’s what I wanted so I’m pretty pleased with it,” Lacroix said. “There’s maybe five, six girls that can contend for medals. I knew that today was my day and it’s the race I want to medal in. I’m third right now but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s going to be a great fight tonight for medals.”
Fellow Pont-Rouge native Katerine Savard will join her in the final after posting the eighth-fastest heat at 2:11.31.
Finals get underway at 2 p.m. ET, with live coverage on cbcsports.ca/glasgow2014 and daily highlight shows being broadcast on CBC TV.
MacLean, of Etobicoke, Ont., qualified for tonight’s 800-m freestyle final in fourth position. After helping Canada to silver in the 4x200-m free relay Saturday, the 20-year-old grabbed a spot in the 800 final on the strength of an 8:27.32 in Sunday’s heats.
Calgary’s Russell Wood added his name to the list of Canadian finalists swimming tonight. The 20-year-old’s time of 1:59.92 in the 200-m backstroke heats was good for sixth seed.
They will join six other Canadians who qualified through Sunday’s semifinals: Tera Van Beilen of the High Performance Centre – Vancouver (5th, 1:08.11) and Kierra Smith (6th, 1:08.49) of Kelowna, B.C., in the women’s 100-m breaststroke; Sandrine Mainville (6th, 55.16), Victoria Poon (7th, 55.60) and Alyson Ackman (8th, 55.71) of Montreal in the women’s 100-m freestyle; and Edmonton’s Richard Funk (8th, 27.93) in the men’s 50-m breaststroke final.
Meanwhile, Ryan Cochrane of the High Performance Centre – Victoria took the first step in defending his 1,500-m freestyle gold medal. Cochrane’s heat swim of 15:03.29 was 0.09 faster than Stephen Milne of host Scotland, earning him Lane 4 for Tuesday’s final.
Also advancing in the morning were Brooklyn Snodgrass of Calgary (6th, 28.80) and Hilary Caldwell of the High Performance Centre – Victoria (10th, 29.31) in the women’s 50-m backstroke, and Calgary’s Yuri Kisil (12th, 22.87) in the men’s 50-m freestyle. All three will swim semifinals this evening.
