News & Articles

FINA World Junior Championships By the Numbers

2015 FINA World Juniors, Features, News –

The summer is over and Canadian swimmers are already looking ahead to the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games.

But before completely turning the page on 2015, here is one final look at some numbers that stood out at the FINA World Junior Championships.

“Finishing fourth on the overall Championships points trophy shows our depth of performance in the event, and this alongside 12 medals was a great effort by the swimmers and their coaches,” said Swimming Canada High Performance Director John Atkinson.

“One of the goals we had for the championships was to final in all eight relays and we did this as well as winning medals in three and establishing a world junior record in the mixed 4×100 freestyle,” Atkinson added. “There were many breakthrough performances including two gold medals and six overall for Taylor Ruck. Also Penny Oleksiak stepped forward to come away with six medals overall.”

Canadian medallists:
Gold (3): Taylor Ruck (born in Kelowna, B.C., resides in Arizona) 100-m freestyle and 200-m freestyle; 4×100-m mixed freestyle relay (Javier Acevedo, Ajax, Ont.; Markus Thormeyer, Delta, B.C.; Penny Oleksiak, Toronto; Ruck; Rebecca Smith, Red Deer, Alta.).
Silver (6): Women’s 4×200-m freestyle relay (Oleksiak; Smith; Mary-Sophie Harvey, Montreal; Ruck, Meryn McCann, Etobicoke, Ont.); Oleksiak 50-m and 100-m butterfly and 100-m freestyle; Acevedo 50-m backstroke; Harvey 200-m individual medley;
Bronze (3): Ruck 200-m backstroke; Danielle Hanus, Newmarket, Ont., 50-m backstroke; women’s 4×100-m freestyle relay (Oleksiak, Smith, Harvey, Ruck).

Numbers of note:

4 – Total medal rank with 12. Behind only USA, Russia, and Australia

3 – Canadian Age Group records set by Taylor Ruck (100 FR), Josiah Binnema (100 FL), and Danielle Hanus (100 BK)

3 – Championships records set by Taylor Ruck (100 FR, 200 FR) and the Mixed 4×100 FR (Javier Acevedo, Markus Thormeyer, Penny Oleksiak, and Taylor Ruck)

1 – World Junior Record set by Javier Acevedo, Markus Thormeyer, Penny Oleksiak, and Taylor Ruck in the mixed 4×100 FR.

17 – Swims that place a Canadian development swimmer in the top 100 world ranking

6 – medals won by Taylor Ruck (3 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze)

6 – medals won by Penny Oleksiak (1 gold, 4 silver, 1 bronze)

1 – position of Ruck and Oleksiak in all-time World Junior medal count for Canadian Swimmers

78.9 – percentage of swimmers who made a final (15/19)

15 – total medals won by Canadians born in 2000 or later (more than double that of any other country)

1.77 – seconds improvement from Taylor Ruck’s best time to her relay split in the 4×100 FR.

17 – total races swum by Taylor Ruck (heats, semi-finals, and finals included)

17 – world rank of Taylor Ruck’s 53.92 100 FR.

0.09 – seconds Taylor Ruck was away from Chantal Van Landeghem’s 100 FR Canadian record

30 – degrees Celsius, the average temperature during the FINA World Junior Championships, with 73% humidity