Swimmer Eric Hedlin of Victoria may have to console himself with the toughest of career categories — best athletes who never made the Olympics. The two-time world championship medallist was top Canadian but failed to qualify for the 2024 Paris Summer Games by placing 31st in the 10K open-water Olympic trials on Sunday in Doha.
The veteran Island racer looked to be on course for an Olympic berth for much of the race before fading near the end.
“Even though I obviously wanted to make the [Olympic] team, I’m happy with having put myself out there and been in the running even though I just didn’t have enough energy at the end,” Hedlin said in a statement.
“I had the fitness, I had the tactics, I was just relying on maybe a little bit more luck at the end. But there were obviously many other people with just as good fitness and just as good tactics ahead of me.”
At 30, that might have been his last chance.
The winner was Kristof Rasovszky of Hungary with Marc-Antoine Olivier of France second and Hector Pardoe of Great Britain third. Hau-Li Fan of Vancouver, ninth in the 2000 Tokyo Olympics, was 36th.
sa国际传媒’s greatest open-water moment at the Olympics was at London in 2012 when Richard Weinberger came out of the UVic Vikes/Pacific Coast Club to win 10K bronze in the Serpentine at Hyde Park. But there will be no repeat in Paris this summer.
“Obviously, everyone’s disappointed at the moment, but we have to look back at the things they [Hedlin and Fan] have both achieved,” Canadian open-water head coach Mark Perry said in a statement.
“Eric [Hedlin] is a double world medallist and Pan Pacific Championships medallist, and Hau-Li [Fan] is an Olympian who finished in the top-10 in Tokyo. They’ve had good careers and today it just didn’t work out for either of them.”
Hedlin’s and Fan’s only hopes now are on the two indoor long-distance events, the 800 and 1,500 metres, at the Canadian Olympic swim trials May 13-19 in Montreal.
Hedlin, born in San Diego to Canadian parents, won the non-Olympic event 5K open-water silver and bronze medals respectively in the 2013 Barcelona and 2019 Gwangju FINA world aquatics championships. The UVic Vikes/Pacific Coast Club swimmer also won silver in the 10K at the 2018 Pan Pacific championships in Tokyo and bronze in the 800 metres at the 2013 World University Games in Kazan, Russia.
Hedlin had a stellar career at the University of Victoria and won four sa国际传媒 West gold medals and two U Sports gold medals and seven medals in total in his pool career in the 400- to 1,500-metre freestyles with the Vikes. The pool workhorse was named UVic athlete of the year in 2016-17 and has competed in two Pan Am Games. Hedlin was a star in the classroom as well, being awarded the President’s Cup for 2019-20 as the UVic athlete best combining academic and athletic achievement, and he earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and also a master’s degree and is a Ph.D. candidate.
