Ryan Cochrane wins silver in 1,500 at swimming world championships
Published Sunday August 2nd, 2009
ROME - Canadians showed off the progress they're making at the world swimming championships, and the ease Ryan Cochrane felt in landing on the podium Sunday epitomized that.
The Victoria native clocked 14 minutes 41.38 seconds in the men's 1,500-metre freestyle to claim silver, his second medal of the meet.
He swam stroke for stroke with Olympic champion Oussama Mellouli for the first 1,000 metres before falling back to finish just over seconds back of the 14:37.28 posted by the Tunisian.
Sun Yang of China was a distant third in 14:46.84.
"It was unexpected by how, well, frankly how easy it was in the first half. That always feels good," said Cochrane, who won bronze in the 1,500 at the Beijing Olympics.
"In Beijing last year it was a pretty hard final to make, so I knew it was going to hurt going into the finals and it did."
The pain was worth it as Cochrane, who also won bronze in the 800 on Wednesday, secured a third swimming medal for the national team and the country's ninth medal overall at the event.
Canada also won three diving medals, two in synchronized swimming and a silver in women's water polo.
Since Cochrane ended an Olympic medal drought dating back to Curtis Myden's bronze at the 2000 Sydney Games, the country's swimmers seem to be on a bit of an upswing. Swimming Canada CEO Pierre Lafontaine noted the progress but said much work remains.
"We were better than at the Olympics," said Lafontaine. "It was a very good team effort and there were a lot of breakthroughs. We need to keep moving.
"I feel like we have to take three steps every time while the rest of the world is taking two. We can't really sit back anywhere for us."
That was the case for the 20-year-old Cochrane, who had to struggle to win bronze in the 1,500 at the Beijing Olympics and noticed how much stronger he felt Sunday.
He leaves Rome satisfied.
"There's always things you can work on and I would have loved to have gotten a gold but two medals for the team is great and I'm just happy I made everyone proud," he said. "It's great to end the weekend on a high."
Earlier, Vancouver swimmer Tanya Hunks erased the longest-standing Canadian women's record in the women's 400-metre individual medley preliminaries, but couldn't repeat her performance in the final, when she finished last.
Her time of 4:38.15 was well off the 4:35.84 she swam in the morning, which eclipsed the 4:38.46 clocked by Joanna Malar of Hamilton at the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg.
"I always looked up to (Malar) and admired her so breaking her record is pretty special for me," said Hunks.
"It didn't go quite as well as I wanted to tonight but I'm still relatively new to this event. I'm not satisfied with what I swam tonight, I would have liked to have gone faster.
"I think I held my nerves together really well until about two minutes before the race. But I just got in there and I tried my best. I can only move forward from this."
Katinka Hosszu of Hungary won the final in 4:30.31, Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe was second in 4:32.12 while Australia's Stephanie Rice finished third in 4:32.29.
Victoria's Alexa Komarnycky was 16th in the preliminaries and did not advance.
Earlier, Amanda Reason of Toronto lost the world record in the 50-metre breaststroke she set less than a month ago.
Russia's Yuliya Efimova edged American Rebecca Soni in 30.09 seconds, breaking Reason's mark of 30.23.
Reason was seventh in 30.67 Sunday.
The next two behind Efimova also went under Reason's old mark, with Soni (30.11) taking silver and Australia's Sarah Katsoulis (30.16) the bronze.
Annamay Pierse of Vancouver, who won silver in the 200-metre breaststroke earlier in the meet, was fifth in 30.53.
Canada also set a national record in the men's 4x100 medley relay prelims, but did not make the final.
Pascal Wollach of Calgary, Mathieu Bois of Montreal, Joe Bartoch of London, Ont., and Brent Hayden of Vancouver finished ninth in 3:31.02, missing the final by 0.28 seconds. The previous Canadian record of 3:34.99 was set at last year's Olympic trials by a foursome that included Bois and Bartoch.
In the men's 400 IM, Jordan Hartney of Vancouver and Anders McIntyre of Vernon, B.C. did not advance.
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