Ingrid Wilm, Two Toronto Titans Set Canadian Records in ISL Match 5
The Toronto Titans have had a hand in refurbishing the Canadian short-course record board, but they got an assist from Ingrid Wilm this week.
The LA Current backstroker joined two Titans in re-setting a total of four records on the Canadian short-course board in ISL Match 5. With a few more within fractions of a second, it’s unlikely to be the last rewriting of the International Swimming League season.
First Wilm, who is the only one in the group not to have swum at the Olympics this summer for Canada. The 23-year-old went 55.68 in the women’s 100 backstroke, in the process outdueling her countrywoman and the Olympic silver medalist Kylie Masse in route to taking down her Canadian short-course record.
Wilm first clipped the mark last week in ISL Match 4 with a 55.94, downing Masse’s record from 2016 (56.02). Masse was faster in ISL Match 5 and got under her old mark with a personal-best 55.95.
But Wilm was out in front of that in 55.68. (She also went 55.90 off the front of the Current’s medley relay.) Wilm also holds the fastest time in ISL this season.
The other two backstroke records don’t appear long for this world. Masse holds the 50 back record at 26.15 seconds. She has been 26.16 this season, the second-fastest time in the league behind only the 26.11 posted by world record holder Kira Toussaint. Wilm has gone 26.28. The 200 back record belongs to Taylor Ruck, who is not swimming in ISL, at 2:01.66. Masse went 2:01.97 in ISL Match 6, with Wilm at 2:02.82.
Summer McIntosh added another record to her collection. Her time of 3:58.78 in the 400 freestyle trounced by more than three seconds the Canadian record that had stood since 2016. Mary-Sophie Harvey owned that mark at 4:02.23, and McIntosh had buzzed within four tenths earlier this season. But she destroyed it with her winning swim in Match 6, the 15-year-old adding her name to the short-course record book for the first time. She also owns the long-course 400 free mark.
Finlay Knox also continues to use ISL to lower the individual medley records, rewriting both the 100 and 200 distances. In the 200, he clocked in at 1:52.55, more than a second faster than the 1:53.67 he threw down in Budapest in 2020.
The margin was commensurate in the 100 IM: Knox went 52.36 in ISL Season 2 to set the record; In Match 5, he turned in a time of 51.82 seconds.
Among the other close calls is the men’s 100 back, win which the Titans’ Javier Acevedo came within two tenths of Cole Pratt’s record with a time of 50.60 seconds.
Among the Titans, Shane Ryan also lowered his Irish record in the men’s 50 freestyle from 21.41 seconds in 2019 to 21.37. He also went 21.39 in the skins race. Alberto Razzetti of the Titans set an Italian record in the men’s 400 individual medley by going 4:01.57. That downed a mark that had stood for 15 years dating to the 2006 European Championships in the hands of Luca Marin (4:01.71).
