SINGAPORE – Penny Oleksiak of Toronto, Mary-Sophie Harvey of Montreal and Javier Acevedo of Ajax, Ont., each won a silver medal with personal best times on Friday at the FINA World Junior Swimming Championships.

Canada increased its medal total to eight with two gold, five silver and a bronze with two days of competition remaining. At the last world juniors in 2013, Canada won two medals.
In the women’s 50-m butterfly, Rikako Ikee of Japan clocked a meet record 26.28 for the victory. Oleksiak collected her fourth medal of the competition finishing in 26.45 with Mariia Kamaneva of Russia third in 26.47.

‘’I think my whole race went very well,’’ said Oleksiak, with a gold and three silver so far this week. ‘’I had a really good dive and breakout. From there I just had to sprint to the wall. My biggest challenge was trying to become mentally ready for the race. It’s only a 50 and you have to do everything perfect throughout the race.’’

In the men’s 50-m backstroke, Michel Andrew of the U.S. took the title in a meet record 25.13 with Acevedo second in 25.46 and Mohamed Samy of Egypt and Robinson Molina of Venezuela tied for third in 25.54.

It was a first individual international medal for Acevedo.

‘’I touched the wall properly which helped get the silver in a very tight race,’’ he said. ‘’ It was very important because I know that I will have more out speed the next time I do it. I made sure I was mentally prepared before the race. I was confident.’’

The women’s 200-m individual medley was won by Viktoria Zeynep Gunes of Turkey in 2:11.03 – a world junior record. Harvey followed in 2:12.37 – a personal best by 1.4 seconds- and Georgia Coates of Britain was third in 2:12.74.

‘’I was really happy with my race,’’ said Harvey. ‘’I really wanted to do a best time, since it was from a year ago. I knew that everyone was better than me in the breaststroke, so I had to get out fast in the first 100 and keep the pace.’’

Canada was also fifth in the men’s 4×200-m freestyle relay with Markus Thormeyer of Delta, B.C., Samuel Bélanger of Quebec City, Carson Olafson of Chilliwack, B.C., and Acevedo.

In the women’s 50-m backstroke semifinal, Danielle Hanus qualified third for Saturday’s final with a personal best 28.27.
‘’I had a good start and pretty good underwater kick,’’ said Hanus. ‘’I needed a good transition from underwater kick to flutter kick and not pausing between them while still having a good breakout.’’

Information

Results: Omega Timing

Live streaming: FINA TV

Canadian team bios: Swimming Canada