In the pool and out, Jeremy Bagshaw is a multi-faceted individual. The Victoria athlete, in his second year of medical school at the University of Limerick in Ireland, has been named to Canada’s swim team for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England.
Also selected was Paralympian Nicholas Bennett of Parksville as Para sports are fully integrated into the Commonwealth Games, the only major multi-sport Games in which that is the case. There are eight Para swimmers on the 31-member Canadian team announced Monday.
The Canadian trials were held in April at Saanich Commonwealth Place with Bagshaw winning the men’s 400-metre freestyle. The graduate of St. Michaels University School, and Pac-12 medallist for the NCAA-champion Bears at Cal-Berkeley, is a Pan Am Games medallist and will also swim the 200-metre freestyle and in the 4x200 freestyle relay in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games. The 30-year-old Island veteran and multiple-time Canadian 400-metre freestyle champion has competed in three FINA world championships but just missed making the Olympic team on three occasions.
Tokyo Paralympian Bennett, out of the Ravensong Breakers Club in Qualicum Beach, set four Canadian Para records during the trials in Saanich.
“I’ve learned to be patient and trust the process. It’s taken a lot more mental fortitude [in getting through the last two years],” said the 18-year-old.
Also named to the team were members of Canada’s Golden Generation of female swimmers, who accounted for 12 medals over the last two Olympics, six at Tokyo and six at Rio, and who set Saanich Commonwealth Place alight during the national trials last month. That list includes seven-time Olympic medallist Penny Oleksiak, fellow gold-medallist Maggie Mac Neil and backstroke multiple Olympic-medallist Kylie Masse.
But it was the heir presumptive, 15-year-old teen sensation Summer McIntosh, who was named top female athlete of the trials in Saanich with four championships, and who emerged as the Canadian swimmer to watch this summer at both the 2022 FINA world championships at Budapest from June 17 to July 3 and the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games from July 28 to Aug. 8.
The Canadian men, however, have not won an Olympic pool medal since Ryan Cochrane of Victoria and Brent Hayden of Mission in 2012 at London. Look for that to potentially change at Paris 2024 as 19-year-old Joshua Liendo emerged with three gold medals at Saanich Commonwealth Place to be named male swimmer of the trials.
“It’s been a good meet and I learned a lot of things I will bring back with me to training for this summer and beyond,” said Liendo, at the time.
The Canadian team will gather in Caen, France, for its staging camp before crossing the channel to Birmingham. That will break-in the venue that will also serve as the team’s pre-Olympic camp ahead of Paris 2024.
Swimming Canada high performance director and national coach John Atkinson, while in Victoria for the trials, said the Commonwealth Games still serve an important purpose of getting young athletes used to a multi-sport Games environment ahead of the Olympics, something that is totally different than a single-sport world championship.
More than 4,500 athletes will compete in 19 sports and eight Para-sports in Birmingham.
Canada won 20 pool medals at the last Commonwealth Games, in 2018 at Gold Coast, Australia, with three golds, 11 silvers and six bronze medals for its third-best best Commonwealth Games showing behind the 23 medals at Auckland in 1990 and the 21 medals at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1998.
