Canada Nominates Emma Finlin, Eric Brown for World Championship
Canada’s Emma Finlin and Eric Brown are in line for spots at the World Championships this summer in open water swimming after their finishes at the U.S. Open Water Championships on Friday.
Finlin finished ninth in the women’s race in Sarasota, Fla., and Brown was 10th among the men. Finlin finished a spot behind fellow Canadian Abby Dunford, but she qualifies for the Worlds spot via Swimming Canada’s selection criteria, which uses this race as well as times in the 1,500 in the pool and is subject to ratification by a selection committee next week.
Finlin covered the course at Nathan Benderson Park in 2 hours, 6 minutes, 4 seconds. That was 39 seconds slower than Dunford and just shy of two minutes behind American winner Brinkleigh Hansen.
“I just tried to put my best race down,” Finlin told Swimming Canada. “I haven’t done open water since the Olympics so it was definitely a change of scenery. I always forget how aggressive it is the first lap, it’s kind of a wakeup call that first lap, then you kind of settle into pace.”
Finlin, 19, is in line for her fourth straight World Championships, dating to 2022. The Edmonton native finished 23rd in the 10k at the Paris Olympics, qualifying via an unused continental quota spot as the lone Canadian representative in open water at the Olympics. She finished 23rd in the 5-kilometer at the 2024 World Championships in Doha and 28th in the 5km in Budapest in 2022. In the 10K, she placed 30th in 2023 and 24th in 2024.
Finlin is a freshman at Ohio State; she finished 28th at NCAAs in the mile.
Finlin was part of an international top 10 on the women’s side. Behind Hansen were American Olympians Claire Weinstein and Mariah Denigan, the latter an open water rep in Paris. Japanese swimmers Misa Okuzono and Ichika Kajimoto were fifth and sixth, respectively, before Dunford in eighth, Finlin in ninth and Australian Madeleine Gough in 10th.
Brown, a junior at the University of Florida, covered 10 kilometers in 1:54:44. That was good for 10th among the men, 1:06 behind the matching times of winner Kyle Lee of Australia and his countryman Thomas Raymond.
“I’ve done a lot of these races so I kind of knew how to swim it and I knew I had to be smart,” Brown said. “I couldn’t blow my energy on the first lap or two. I was just conservative and made sure I stayed with that top group because I knew that would be enough.”
Brown is part of a rebuilding Canadian open water program. Tokyo Olympian Hau-Li Fan retired last summer after falling short of the Paris Games. Stalwart and two-time Worlds medalist Eric Hedlin is 31. Brown finished 26th in the 10k at the 2022 World Championships and 32nd a year later.
“Nathan Benderson Park here is a great venue to host open water events. Swimming Canada would like to thank USA Swimming for allowing us to partner at their event to run our trials,” High Performance Director and National Coach John Atkinson said. “This year having a two-pronged strategy of 1,500-m time and open water position is something that we’re going to continue with into the future. Once the selections are ratified, we’ll have good plans in place so the swimmers can maximize their performance in Singapore.”
Canadian swimming pool trials will be held Jun 7-12 in Victoria. Open water competition is Singapore this summer set to precede the pool events, going off on July 14-19. The pool swimming begins July 26.
