By Ben Dornan on SwimSwam
Despite having been granted pre-selection to the 2021 Canadian Olympic team in the women’s 100 freestyle, Taylor Ruck will not be racing the event in Tokyo. Ruck was selected based on her 6th place finish at the 2019 World Swimming Championships where she hit a 53.03 but does not appear on the entry lists for the event released Wednesday by FINA.
In Ruck’s absence, 2016 Olympic Champion in the event Penny Oleksiak will contest the 100 free along with 2nd place finisher at 2021 Olympic Trials Kayla Sanchez. Oleksiak was expected to join Ruck in the event, having hit a 52.89 at Canadian Trials and Sanchez makes sense as Ruck’s replacement, having hit a 53.77 at Trials to take silver and get under the 54.38 FINA A standard.
Ruck also swam the 100 freestyle at Olympic Trials but was not on par with her 2019 World Championships performance and finished with a 54.58 behind Olekisak, Sanchez, Maggie MacNeil (54.02), and Katerine Savard (54.51). Ruck was off form in a number of events including in the women’s 200 freestyle where she missed the final, hitting a 2:01.06 for 12th place which was far off her 1:54.44 Canadian record from 2018.
While she wasn’t fast enough to qualify in the 200 free or affirm her spot in the 100, Ruck did manage to claim a spot on the Olympic roster in both the 100 and 200 backstrokes. Ruck delivered second place finishes at Trials with a 59.60 in the 100 back and a 2:09.26 in the 200. Those swims got her under the 1:00.25 and 2:10.39 FINA A cuts and allowed her to join Canadian record holder Kylie Masse in the events in Tokyo. The 100 and 200 backstrokes are her only 2 individual entries at the Games.
Despite being Olympic-qualifying swims, Ruck’s backstroke performances were also a bit slower than her lifetime bests in the events. In the 100, Ruck holds a PB of 58.55 which she swam in 2019 at the Canadian Swimming Trials. In the 200, her best time is a 2:06.36 from the 2018 Pro Swim Series in Atlanta.
While she’s better known for her freestyle abilities in long course, Ruck has already collected a number of major international medals in the backstrokes events. Ruck began racing for Canada back in 2015 when she won bronze in the 200 back at World Junior Championships. 2 years later she took silver in the 100 back at 2017 World Juniors. The next year, Ruck collected a record-breaking 8 medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games which included silver in the 200 back and bronze in the 100. At the 2018 Pan Pacific Games, she picked up another medal in the 200 backstroke. Ruck has yet to win an individual medal at an Olympic Games or long course World Championships, having won 4×100 and 4×200 freestyle bronze in Rio 2016 and 4×100 free/medley and 4×200 freestyle bronze at Gwangju 2019.
Without Ruck in the event, 3 women from the 2019 World Championships final will be absent in the 100 freestyle in Tokyo. Along with Ruck, both American representatives in Simone Manuel and Mallory Comerford have been replaced in the event by Abbey Weitzeil and Erika Brown who went 1-2 in the final at US Olympic Trials. Back in 2019, Manuel took gold in the event while Comerford was 7th.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Taylor Ruck Drops 100 Free at Olympics; Sanchez Takes Spot