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Usually held each two years, the World Aquatics Championships are a jewel of the Olympic sports activities calendar. The thrill will increase when it is the final worlds earlier than a Summer time Video games, as athletes jockey for qualifying in swimming, diving, water polo and creative swimming whereas giving us a sneak peek on the potential stars for the next 12 months’s Olympics.
However this one is totally different. On account of a cascade of pandemic-related postponements, the World Aquatics Championships are, for the primary time, about to happen in an Olympic 12 months. The truth is, they’re taking place lower than six months earlier than the opening ceremony in Paris — and simply six months after the 2023 world championships in Japan.
It is unimaginable for the world’s greatest swimmers to peak 3 times within the span of a 12 months of their gruelling sport — at the least not in the event that they need to carry their greatest selves to Paris. So most of them are staying dwelling, together with Canadian stars Summer time McIntosh, Penny Oleksiak, Maggie Mac Neil, Kylie Masse and Josh Liendo. Solely seven of the 22 particular person swimming gold medallists from final 12 months’s worlds are competing in Doha, the place competitors begins Friday with some diving and creative swimming occasions earlier than swimming takes over the pool on Feb. 11.
Regardless of the meet’s marquee sport being severely depleted, there are nonetheless some good Canadian angles to comply with. Listed here are probably the most attention-grabbing:
Canada despatched a robust diving staff.
In contrast to the swimmers, Canada’s diving contingent in Doha is at full power. Latest world-championship medallists Pamela Ware, Caeli McKay, Mia Vallée, Rylan Wiens and Nathan Zsombor-Murray are all slated to compete.
Vallée gained silver within the girls’s 3m springboard occasion and bronze within the non-Olympic 1m springboard on the 2022 world championships in Hungary, the place Wiens and Nathan Zsombor-Murray took bronze within the males’s synchronized 10m platform. Ware and McKay grabbed bronze within the solo girls’s 3m and 10m occasions, respectively, final 12 months.
Canada has secured one Olympic berth in every of the ladies’s 3m, girls’s 10m and males’s 10m occasions and can be trying so as to add extra Olympic entries in Doha. Which divers get to fill these spots can be decided on the Canadian Olympic trials in Might in Windsor, Ont.
Diving competitors in Doha begins with the ladies’s 1m and blended staff occasions on Friday and continues by Feb. 10.
It is the final probability for Canada to get a water polo staff to Paris.
The boys’s squad is eradicated from Olympic rivalry, however the girls can seize one of many two spots left of their occasion. These will go to the highest two finishers who have not already certified for the Video games.
Half of the 16 girls’s groups in Doha have punched their tickets to Paris, so Canada is competing in opposition to seven different groups for these two Olympic spots. The Canadians will face two of them within the group stage as they meet Nice Britain on Tuesday and Italy, the bronze medallist finally 12 months’s worlds, on Thursday. Canada’s opening match is Sunday in opposition to South Africa, which clinched the lone Olympic spot from the comparatively weak African area.
The highest staff in every group advances on to the quarterfinals. The runner-up goes to a one-game playoff for a spot within the quarters. The opposite two groups can be eradicated from championship rivalry, and possibly the Olympics too.
The Canadian girls made it to the quarterfinals in Tokyo in 2021, however the nation has by no means gained an Olympic water polo medal.
Canada’s creative and open-water swimmers can qualify for the Olympics too.
Inventive swimming (previously generally known as synchronized swimming) nonetheless has 5 Olympic spots open within the staff occasion and eight within the duet. The world championships are the final probability to seize them.
Trying to achieve Paris within the duet is the Canadian pairing of two-time Olympian Jacqueline Simoneau and Audrey Lamothe, an 18-year-old who positioned fourth within the non-Olympic solo free occasion finally 12 months’s worlds. In staff competitors, Canada can be competing with seven different nations for the final 5 Olympic entries. 5 different groups in Doha have already clinched Olympic spots as continental champions.
Inventive swimming competitors opens Friday and continues by Feb. 10.
4 Canadian open-water swimmers are vying for a spot within the Olympic 10km occasions — the one outside races on the Paris program. The ladies’s race on Saturday contains youngsters Emma Finlin and Laila Oravsky. Sunday’s males’s race options Eric Hedlin, a two-time worlds medallist within the 5km distance, and Hau-Li Fan, who positioned ninth within the 10K on the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. A top-13 end in Doha will get you into the Olympics.
Tips on how to watch:
Reside streaming protection on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports activities app and CBC Gem begins Friday at 7:30 a.m. ET with diving’s blended staff occasion and continues daily by the tip of the world championships on Feb. 18. The CBC TV community may have further protection on Saturdays.
See the total streaming and broadcast schedule right here. Watch former Canadian Olympic swimmer Brittany MacLean’s three causes to look at the World Aquatics Championships right here.