Richmond's Noemie Thomas concluded the third and final stop of the Mare Nostrum swimming tour in Barcelona, Spain Sunday with a silver medal in the women's 50-metre butterfly.
The 18-year-old, who is headed to the University of California Berkley on a full-ride scholarship this fall, finished second to Denmark's Jeanette Ottesen (25.27) in a time of 26.33. Svetlana Chimrova of Russia (26.38) was third.
"It was kind of a struggle today,' said Thomas who also was second in the 100-m butterfly on Wednesday at the tour's second stop in Canet-en-Rousillon, France. "We are in the midst of some hard training and to combine that with competitions has taken its toll.' She tried to forget about her aches and pains for her race on Sunday.
"The 50 fly is more mental than physical, you just have to be on,' she said. "It was great to have these opportunities to race Jeanette who really blew everyone away here. It's an awesome international experience and very motivating.' Thomas was also eighth in the 200-m fly on Sunday. She was was in the hunt for the bronze in Saturday's 100-m fly final. She settled for fifth in a time of 58.98 seconds which was actually 0.01 seconds faster than her silver medal clocking in France three days earlier.
Canada fielded a six-member squad for the annual European tour. The other Canadians competing were: Jeremy Bagshaw and Keegan Zanatta of Victoria, Stefan Milosevic and Luke Peddie of Vancouver and Ariane Mainville of Montreal.
Thomas suffered an ankle injury earlier this year which hampered her performance at the Canadian Swimming Trials in April. She fell short in her bid to make the Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacific Championships teams this summer.
Last year, she was seventh in the 100 fly final at the World FINA Championships in Barcelona.
She was coming off a three medal performance, including a pair of gold, at last month's 51st annual Mel Zajac Jr. International Canada Cup Meet, held at UBC.
Thomas graduates this month from Magee secondary. She left Steveston's McMath secondary after her Grade 10 year to enroll at Magee which has a sports program for high level athletes that require flexible schedules.
