The Richmond Rapids Swim Club will be represented on the Canadian team for the upcoming World Cup tour.
The event is a series of short course meets in nine locations across Europe and Asia. Swimmers are not required to participate in every meet, but top scoring individuals at the end of the series split a purse of over $2 million (US). It will be divided into three clusters.
The Rapids’ Nik Dekker will be racing in the third and final cluster, moving from Singapore, to Tokyo, to Hong Kong over the last two weeks of October.
Other participants in the World Cup are some of the best in the sport. A quick scan of names include Chad Le Clos, Cameron van der Burgh, James Guy, Katina “Iron Lady” Hosszu, Emily Seebohm, and Breeja Larson, who have a quite the stack of World Championship and Olympic medals among them.
The series is seen as a chance to “tune up” in preparation for the 13th FINA World Short Course Championships which will be hosted by Swim Canada in December. Dekker will begin to test his preparation against many of the athletes he’s likely to see in Windsor.
His long-time mentor and Head Coach of the Rapids, Robert Pettifer, has also been invited to attend the World Championships while prepping Dekker.
Pettifer was named the Swimming Canada Select Coaches Group back in July, due in part to his work with Dekker, and in part to his continued development of the Rapids and swimming in B.C. overall.
The Select Coaches group includes financial support from Swimming Canada for a mentorship opportunity of Pettifer’s choosing, with a heavy emphasis on peer learning and involvement.
Pettifer’s trip to Windsor will also be funded, along with his participation in the FINA Gold Medal Clinic prior to the meet’s start.
