(Photo credit: François Laplante, Freestyle Photography)
BELGRADE, Serbia - In the last individual final of the Summer Universiade after six days of competition at the pool, Team Canada finally put a swimmer atop the podium when Salmon Arm, B.C.'s Kevyn Peterson went wire-to-wire in the women's 400-metre freestyle.
Summer Universiade website: www.universiade-belgrade2009.org Team Canada website: www.universitysport.ca/belgrade
The medal, Canada's first gold and 14th overall of the Games, follows a silver-medal performance by Peterson in the 200-metre freestyle on Friday and brings the Canadian swimmers into a tie with the athletics team with seven medals apiece and just one day remaining at the Stadium.
Peterson reached the top step of the podium against long odds. Despite winning her morning qualification heat, she finished seventh in the aggregate standings and qualified for the final by a fingernail. As a result, she was assigned lane one for the final.
Despite the outside lane, Peterson shot out at the start to take the lead at the 50-metre mark and never looked back, knocking more than eight seconds off her qualifying time to finish in 4:10.01, beating out a hard-charging Kristen Heiss of the United States by 1.29 seconds.
"It's a big shock, I'm kind of overwhelmed," said the 21-year-old from the University of Calgary. "I had no idea this was coming tonight after my morning swim, but it's nice to be able to come out with a gutter ball in lane one and do something like this.
"After the first 150 metres I realized that I was ahead of everyone else," she went on. "I got a little freaked out and thought that I might have to back off a little, but thankfully I was able to stay with it as long as I could and get to the wall first."
"What a swim," said Mike Blondal, Peterson's head coach with the reigning CIS champion Dinos and the Canadian head coach in Belgrade. "She rolled a gutter ball after a pretty crappy morning for everyone in the rain and the cold, but she came out tonight like she had been shot out of a cannon and she didn't fade at all. She swam a serious, world-class time."
On her third trip to the podium after relay silver in the 4 x 200-metre freestyle and her own 200 free silver Friday, Peterson finally got to see the Maple Leaf raised on the middle flag pole.
"It was so much better to see it fly higher than everyone else's, and this was a long time coming," she said. "We had a great meet as a team, and it feels great to be the one at the top, bringing it home."
Peterson's gold was the only medal in six final swims for the Canadians as the SRC Tasmajdan outdoor pool bid farewell to the Universiade competition.
In the men's 50-metre freestyle, Matt Rose of Lindsay, Ont., also drew lane one and put together a great effort but finished fourth in 22.29 seconds, just one tenth out of a two-way tie for the silver medal between Boris Steimetz of France and Sergey Fesikov of Russia. Italy's Andrea Rolla took gold in the 'splash-and-dash' in a time of 22.16.
The women's 4 x 100-metre medley relay team of Calgary's Katy Murdoch, Kayla Voytechek of Lethbridge, Alta., Paméla Filiatrault-Veilleux of St-Nicolas, Que., and Marie-Pier Ratelle of Quebec City got off to a great start and led the first 150 metres of the race before being overtaken by the eventual winners from the United States. Italy and Russia also passed Team Canada before the 250-metre mark, and the Canadians touched the wall in fourth place with a time of 4:04.40.
In the other relay of the night, the Canadian team of Rose, Bryn Jones of London, Ont., Richmond, B.C.'s Brian Johns and Richard Hortness of Medicine Hat, Alta., was sixth to touch the wall, but the squad was disqualified after one of the transitions between swimmers was ruled premature. The Canadians were not alone, however, as both the United States, the apparent silver medallists, and the British were also disqualified. Japan won the race with a new Universiade record time of 3:32.80, with Italy taking silver and France grabbing bronze.
In other Canadian finals on Saturday, Allison Long of Calgary finished eighth in the women's 50-metre breaststroke, while Steven Bielby of Pointe-Claire, Que., was eighth in the men's 400m individual medley.
With seven swimming medals to Canada's credit, Blondal was pleased with the team's performance in Belgrade.
"It was a pretty exciting meet," said the coach, who represented Canada as an athlete at the 1977 Universiade in Sofia, Bulgaria. "We figured coming in that there were some medals to win, so we might as well go and win some. This is great for university swimming in Canada, but now we have to figure out how to do this every year, because that's what grows the sport."
"We had some really great swims from relays to individuals, and we worked really well together," said Peterson. "This team has been one of the best in terms of atmosphere and having fun, and I'm really privileged to be part of that and to contribute to that team."
Final men's 4x100m medley relay 1. Japan, 3:32.80, Universiade Record 2. Italy, 3:35.75 3. France, 3:38.31 Canada (Matt Rose, Lindsay, Ont., Bryn Jones, London, Ont., Brian Johns, Richmond, B.C., Richard Hortness, Medicine Hat, Alta.), disqualified.
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