The Olympics may be starting down in Rio de Janeiro but that hasn’t stopped the rest of the world from lighting up the pool.<\/p>\n
Luke Reilly<\/strong> and\u00a0Mary-Sophie Harvey<\/strong> proved to be the King and Queen of the individual medley’s after turning in gold-medal performances at the 2016 Canadian Swimming Championships. Reilly, 20, stopped the clock at a 4:21.36 to beat the competition by more than two seconds, while Harvey, 16, utilized her strong breaststroke to pull away from the crowd to finish with a 4:47.55.<\/p>\n EDMONTON \u2013\u00a0Mary<\/strong>–Sophie<\/strong> Harvey<\/strong> had her second stellar outing in women’s 400-metre individual medley this week, coming close to a best time at the Canadian Swimming Championships.<\/p>\n The 16-year-old Harvey, who is part of the Intensive Training Program \u2013 Montreal, won in four minutes 47.55 seconds. Harvey opened a lead with a pair of 41-second lengths in the breaststroke leg and prevailed by nearly 3.5 seconds. For the Saint-Jerome, Que., native, it was an encouraging result with the Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships just more than two weeks away.<\/p>\n It’s my second-best time ever,\u201d related Harvey, who also picked up a bronze on Friday with Club Neptune Saint-Jerome’s mixed medley relay team. \u201cMy breaststroke is coming along \u2013 all of my strokes are coming along. It’s really special because it’s my second medal at the senior nationals, and the first two years ago was also in the 400 IM.<\/p>\n I’ve done a lot of racing recently. I’m really going to focus on the 200 IM and then take Sunday off and start working on sprints.\u201d<\/p>\n The men’s 400-m IM included nine of the top 10 finishers from the Canadian Olympic & Para-Swimming Trials. Luke<\/strong> Reilly<\/strong> of the UBC Dolphins Swim Club, who won at the Trials but did not meet the FINA standard required for a nomination, won gold on Friday in 4:21.36.<\/p>\n The biggest thing about this meet was to just get back in the water,\u201d Reilly, 20, said. \u201cTrials was pretty disappointing and it was pretty difficult coming to the pool every day. The plan was to get back into and race and build off what I did at Mare Nostrum.<\/p>\n One of the hardest things in swimming is nothing will ever will go the way you want to,\u201d Reilly added. \u201cYou have to be adaptable. That is something that I have struggled with and have to work on a lot. If you can get that from a young age, you’re going to be a really good swimmer.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeremy<\/strong> Bagshaw<\/strong>, who in April came within a quarter-second of qualifying for the Olympics, won men’s 200-m freestyle in 1:48.97.<\/p>\n This morning I was a little bit short on my strokes and just wanted to lengthen it out,\u201d said Bagshaw, who was on the 2015 senior national team. \u201cThis is a good meet, it’s a chance to see the result of all the work I have done since trials. I am looking forward to the 400 [on Saturday].\u201d<\/p>\n Sixteen-year-old sprinter Rebecca<\/strong> Smith<\/strong> won women’s 50-m butterfly in 27.21 seconds, even though she had to swim back-to-back races since 200-m freestyle was also held on Friday. Smith is also part of the squad headed to the Junior Pan Pacs, which take place Aug. 24-27 in Maui.<\/p>\n It’s been a challenging bouncing back from Age Groups, but I just wanted to go in there and race and compete with the best in the country,\u201d the Red Deer, Alta., native said. \u201cFor sure, it’s motivation for Junior Pan Pacs. I was happy with getting a win in the 50 fly. It was a hard race. I had just a few minutes after the 200 free but I just put my head down and went for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Two University of Manitoba athletes won golds \u2013 Kelsey<\/strong> Wog<\/strong> in women’s 50-m breaststroke (31.70) and Mackenzie<\/strong> Glover<\/strong> in women’s 100-m backstroke (1:01.96). Wog also won 200-m breaststroke on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Saturday’s finals begin at 6 p.m. Alberta time. The program includes finals in 100-m butterfly, 400-m freestyle and 200-m IM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Olympics may be starting down in Rio de Janeiro but that hasn’t stopped the rest of the world from lighting up the pool. Luke Reilly and\u00a0Mary-Sophie Harvey proved to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":144896,"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],"tags":[58226],"class_list":["post-216138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-2016-canadian-swimming-championships"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nRead the full press release from Swimming Canada here:<\/h3>\n