MONTREAL, Canada, July 29. KEITH Beavers of Waterloo, Ont., bettered his Canadian record in the men\u2019s 200-meter backstroke for the first time in three years on Saturday at the 2006 Pan Pacific Trials and National Championship. <\/p>\n
Beavers clocked a 1:58.97 to eclipse the 1:59.25 he swam at the U.S. Nationals in 2003. Matt Hawes of Vancouver placed second in 2:01.18 and Nathan O\u2019Brien of Victoria finished third in 2:03.02. The top-two from each event and the best 18 and under swimmer earn berths on Canada\u2019s team for the Pan Pacific Championships Aug. 16-21 in Victoria. <\/p>\n
"I knew that today was going to be my day," Beavers said. "I felt like that if I didn\u2019t swim fast I could potentially lose that record. It became a big challenge for me to improve on my time and it was getting frustrating. I changed my training program this season and focused on improving my speed and underwater work. I\u2019m really pleased with how it\u2019s worked out." <\/p>\n
Victoria\u2019s Island Swimming also broke the Canadian record in the men\u2019s 400 freestyle relay clocking 3:21.31 with Rick Say, Matt Rose, Desmond Strelzow and Thomas Zochowski. The previous mark of 3:23.36 used to be held by Vancouver\u2019s UBC Dolphins in 2004. <\/p>\n
Kelly Stefanyshyn of Vancouver took the women\u2019s 200 backstroke, Chanelle Charron-Watson of Quebec City won the women\u2019s 400 freestyle and Andrew Hurd of Toronto took the men\u2019s 400 freestyle. The victories stood as the second individual wins for each this week. <\/p>\n
"My goal this week was to win both the 200 and 400 freestyles," Charron-Watson said. "But tonight I was hoping for a faster time. It was unusual for me to race the event with the lead. I\u2019m used to playing catch-up." <\/p>\n
In the men\u2019s 100 butterfly, Joe Bartoch of London, Ont., took the gold in a personal-best 53.13 with Thomas Kindler of Montreal earning second in 54.18. This spring, Bartoch beat world record holder Ian Crocker of the U.S., at a Grand Prix event. <\/p>\n
"That victory at the U.S., Grand Prix was a big turning point for me and set me up well for the rest of the season," Bartoch said. "I was hoping to go into the 52 second range tonight but this is good enough for now. I was really pleased when I saw my time." <\/p>\n
Audrey Lacroix of Montreal won the women\u2019s 100 butterfly with Mackenzie Downing of Victoria garnering second. <\/p>\n
Competition ends Sunday at Parc Jean-Drapeau.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MONTREAL, Canada, July 29. KEITH Beavers of Waterloo, Ont., bettered his Canadian record in the men\u2019s 200-meter backstroke for the first time in three years on Saturday at the 2006<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n