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With Brent Hayden Leading, Youthful Canadian Men’s Program Shows Promise in Tokyo
The hope for the Canadian men’s program before its Trials in late June was to see progress. A performance like the women’s team, which garnered six medals from the Tokyo Olympics, would be beyond any reasonable expectation.
But after the Rio Games yielded no medals and the two only top-10 performances from swimmers no longer representing Canada – through retirement or nationality swap – progress in restocking talent was the aspiration.
On that front, the Canadian men delivered in Tokyo. There’s no hardware coming back, but they got closer than anyone would’ve expected to a medal. And a young team showed that it has the potential to continue building for the next three years toward something more meaningful in Paris.
Earning finals swims for two relays in Tokyo is a success, with the men’s 400 freestyle relay landing six-tenths off the podium in fourth. While 37-year-old Brent Hayden had the only top-10 result of the individuals, seven swims cracked the top 20, including hopes for the future like Josh Liendo and Finlay Knox.
Liendo was particularly impressive. The 20-year-old earned second swims in the 100 free, finishing 14th, and the 100 butterfly, where he was 11th. He just missed the semis in the 50 free with an 18th-place result.
“It’s definitely great,” Liendo said. “Even just being able to go to the ready room with them (the veterans), people who’ve been there before, they know the process and they’re helping me out. By the time it’s for me to race, I already have two swims with them under my belt so I’m ready to race.”
Hayden got into the semis in the 50 as well, tying for ninth in 21.82. Somewhat amazingly, for a swimmer who was retired for seven years, Hayden was just a tenth off his national record from the 2009 super-suit World Championships.
Yuri Kisil also swam well, earning a semis swim in the 100 free to finish 15th. Markus Thormeyer didn’t make it back in the 100 backstroke, settling for 19th, but be finished 16th in the semis of the 200 back. Finlay Knox was 17th in the 200 IM.
The 400 free relay in particular is evidence of progress. As Hayden said afterward, few expected the Canadians to make the final much less contend for a medal. But Hayden, Liendo, Kisil and Thormeyer did just that, setting a Canadian record of 3:10.82. That makes three Canadian records on the men’s side (Knox in the 200 IM and Liendo in the 100 fly from Trials) in 2021.
“It feels good to be back, that’s for sure,” Hayden said. “Definitely missed the thrill of the competition. It was a huge honor going out there and leading these guys in this relay. I don’t think anyone was expecting us to be in that final. No one was expecting us to be in the hunt for a medal, but we showed that Canada means business here. We’ve got a great group of guys.”
The Canadian men also finished seventh in the men’s medley relay via Thormeyer, Gabe Mastromatteo, Liendo and Kisil. (The men’s medley relay was 10th and the 400 free 13th at Worlds in 2019.)
Brent Hayden is a fitting window through which to view Canada’s resurgence. He isn’t measuring the value of his comeback in medals. To do so would elide so much more accomplished behind the scenes. (Hayden, for instance, loves to tell people that Liendo was born after Hayden made his first national team; he added to that genre by having Romanian sprinter David Popovici, born after Hayden’s first Olympics in Athens 2004, introducing himself to “Mr. Hayden,” his idol growing up.)
But by pushing himself to be at the international level, Hayden was also driving forward a program that has struggled since he and Ryan Cochrane medaled at the 2012 London Games. Tokyo offered progress on that quest.
“This means that I made the right decision to come back,” he said. “After being out of the sport for seven years, less than two years of training and I throw down a sub-48 100 meter freestyle. I’m not swimming it individually so I’m counting that as my time at the Olympics. I don’t regret my decision in London; I think at the time it was right. But I’m really thankful that I had the support from the people around me to come back to the sport and fall in love with it all over again.”
“It’s great when we set our goals high,” Liendo said. “We try to push and see how far we can go. It’s great that we’re setting goals high. Sometimes we miss them and we learn from it; sometimes we make it and that’s great.”
