Canada's Ingrid Wilm earns backstroke bronze for 1st long course individual world medal
Edges Australian by 0.10 seconds; Toronto’s Sophie Angus 8th in breaststroke final
Ingrid Wilm extended Canada's streak of medal podium finishes to a third straight day with bronze in the women's 100-metre backstroke at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Qatar.
She battled Iona Anderson for silver down the stretch at the Aspire Dome on Tuesday, but the Australian touched the wall first in 59.12 seconds, 6-100ths ahead of Wilm.
The Calgarian finished less than a half-second off her 58.80 personal best from last year's Canadian trials and 10-100ths of Australia's Jaclyn Barclay in fourth.
"Honestly I was hoping for 58 high around this time but getting my best this season with a 59.1, I'm actually pretty content and happy with it," Wilm said. "It's really nice to know early in the year what I can work on in the next six months to try to [make the Canadian Olympic team for Paris]."
American Claire Curzan, who qualified first for the final, won gold in 58.29.
The bronze is Wilm's first individual long course (50m) world championship medal after the 25-year-old contributed to bronze in the women's 100 medley relay by swimming the preliminary heats in 2022 (Budapest, Hungary) and last year in Fukuoka, Japan.
WATCH | Wilm collects bronze medal in women's 100m backstroke:
"It's a pretty full circle getting my first long course individual medal in the same city and country where I started competitive swimming, so it feels pretty special," Wilm said. "It was exciting, very tight from second to fourth so I'm feeling pretty fortunate for my long arms on that touch there."
Sydney Pickrem took silver in the women's 200 individual medley Monday and Canada claimed bronze in the women's 4x100 freestyle relay Sunday.
The 19-year-old Curzan, who competes at the University of Virginia, claimed the first individual world title of her burgeoning career.
She benefited from the absence of reigning champion Kaylee McKeown of Australia and American stalwart Regan Smith, both of whom skipped these COVID-delayed worlds to focus on the Paris Olympics.
'I can't really believe it'
Curzan's time is significantly slower than Australian Kaylee McKeown's winning time of 57.53 last summer at worlds.
"I can't really believe it yet," Curzan said. "Really excited."
Elsewhere, Toronto resident Sophie Angus, who is a native of Weston, Conn., finished last in the eight-woman final of the 100 breastroke.
The 24-year-old's time of one minute 7.09 seconds was nearly two seconds behind gold medallist Tang Qianting of China, who clocked 1:05.27.
Dutch swimmer Tes Schouten (1:05.82) and Hong Kong's Siobhan Haughey (1:05.92) rounded out the podium.
WATCH | Full coverage of Tuesday's swimming finals from Doha, Qatar:
Tang went out strong and was never seriously challenged on the return lap to give China its second gold of the meet.
Haughey posted the second-fast time in the 200 free semifinals less than an hour earlier.
"I was not expecting this," she said. "I was just swimming the 100 breast for fun. I surprised myself."
Hunter Armstrong takes men's 100 backstroke
Besides Curzan, Hunter Armstrong grabbed the spotlight with some of America's biggest stars deciding to stay home.
He bounced back from a mix-up in the men's 100 backstroke semifinals, where he swam in the wrong lane, to win the final in 52.68. Armstrong earned bronze at each of the previous two world championships.
"No meet is ever going to go perfectly like you want it to," Armstrong said. "We just have to learn to mentally get over it."
Armstrong held off Spain's Hugo Gonzalez, his training partner. The two embraced after Gonzalez claimed the silver at 52.70. The bronze went to Greece's Apostolos Christou at 53.36.
The defending world champion, American Ryan Murphy, was another star who skipped worlds. His winning time last summer was 52.22.
Katie Ledecky, the U.S. star who has dominated the freestyle distance races over the past decade, had won five of the last six world titles in the 1,500. But she, too, decided to skip the trip to Doha.
The U.S. leads the swimming medal table with four gold and eight medals overall through the first three days of competition.
Live streaming and extensive coverage of the aquatics worlds runs through Sunday on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem
WATCH | CBC Sports' Devin Heroux, Brittany MacLean preview aquatics worlds:
With files from The Associated Press
