Summer Universiade swimming (Aug. 16): Close but no cigar for van Beilen

Photo credit Freestyle Photography

SHENZHEN, China (CIS) – Canada came 11 hundredths of a second away from claiming its first swimming medal of the Summer Universiade on Tuesday night at the Natatorium of Universiade Sports Center.

Seventh at the 150-metre turn, Tera van Beilen, native of Oakville, Ont., mounted a furious comeback to place fourth in the final of the women’s 200m breaststroke in a personal best time of 2:26.78. Her final 50 was the second fastest in the field of eight.

“I am usually strong in the final 50m but had no idea where I was when I made the turn,” said van Beilen, who had already set a PB in the morning preliminaries with a time of 2:28.20. “I heard the crowd get louder as a Chinese swimmer was in the race and I said ‘gotta go, gotta go’ now and the adrenaline pushed me to the finish. This result will give me even more confidence heading into the 50 and 100m races.”

Ye Sun (2:24.63) from China overtook Andrea Kropp (2:26.18) of the USA to win gold and please the home crowd, while Satomi Suzuki barely held off van Bellen for bronze in a time of 2:26.67.

Canada took part in two more finals on Tuesday evening.

Hanna Pierse of Edmonton placed seventh in the women’s 400m individual medley in a time of 4:48.32. She was sixth heading into the race after posting a 4:48:56 in the prelims.

In the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay, Nicholas Sinclair from Victoria, Dominique Massie-Martel of Ottawa, Kier Maitland of Edmonton and Colin Miazga of Saskatoon could not improve on their qualification position and finished eighth in the final in 7:26.76. The USA captured gold.

“Today was a good day but we are still looking for a great day,” commented Team Canada and University of Calgary head coach Mike Blondal. “We had a great swim by Tera and real good swim by Hanna, and now just need to convert more ninth, tenth and 11th place swims into qualifying for finals.”

In other swimming action on Tuesday, Pierse nearly qualified for a second final but ended up 10th in the women’s 200 breast with a time of 2:30.67.

In the women’s 400 IM, Paige Schultz of Toronto finished 19th in 4:58.34.

In the women’s 200 free, Lindsay Delmar of Calgary placed 10th in 2:01.21, while Heather MacLean of Etobicoke, Ont., was 26th in 2:04.18.

In the men’s 50 back, Matthew Swanston of Newmarket, Ont., touched the wall in 26.53 to take 18th place, 10 spots ahead of David Sharpe of Halifax, who clocked 27.21.

In the men’s 100 free, Dominique Massie-Martel of Ottawa was 12th in 50.61 and David Hibberd of Calgary was 19th in 50.92.

In the men’s 100 breast, Richard Funk of Edmonton touched in 11th position in 1:02.16, with Jason Block of Calgary following in 24th place in 1:03.07.