Coldstream Para-swimmer Jacob Brayshaw capped off Wednesday, Aug. 2, at the 2023 Speedo Canadian Championships in Toronto by breaking a 28-year-old national record.
Brayshaw, 20, set a new record in the Canadian S2 Para Men 50-metre breaststroke LC (Long Course, 50-metre pool) event. His personal best time of one minute 46.92 seconds broke the old record established in 1995, and he went under his record-breaking time in the same event Wednesday morning of one minute 47 seconds, smashing the old mark by six seconds. He also made the Para Pan Am qualifying time.
“This pool is fast, like having a rocket strapped to my back,” laughed Brayshaw, from Toronto after finishing lunch Thursday, Aug. 3. “I didn’t think I could go as fast at night. We were hoping for 1:49 (one minute 49 seconds) in the morning and we got under that. Everybody is swimming fast in this pool.”
Brayshaw also swam a 20-point relay race Thursday. He was the S2 member on a foursome that included three S6 swimmers (Swimmers’ Para-discipline numbers have to add up to 20 for the relay). Brayshaw swam the backstroke discipliine.
“It was fun,” he said. “I wasn’t really prepared for it as I only found out after the morning swim that I was going to be on the squad, but it’s always fun to swim a relay. I was a little slower than I had hoped.”
“This was a super fun day,” added Brayshaw’s coach, Renate Terpstra of Vernon. Brayshaw is also joined in Toronto by his father, Doug, who acts as Brayshaw’s race starter. For the breaststroke, Brayshaw will start in the water, flat on his stomach, with Doug laying on the pool deck holding his feet.
Brayshaw swims for the KISU Club out of Penticton. He has one race left in Toronto, the 150m Individual Medley on Friday, Aug. 4.
Brayshaw’s 1:47 in the 50m breast Wednesday was 10 seconds under the Para Pan Am Games qualifying time. However, Canada only has four spots available for its swim team for the Games, set for Santiago, Chile, in September, and Brayshaw hadn’t heard as of Thursday if he’d been picked for the squad.
The Okanagan Para Swimming Club member swims out of the KISU Club in Penticton.
In July, Brayshaw competed at the B.C. Summer Provincial finals in Vancouver, and set a new S2 Canadian record in the 150m Individual Medley with a time of 5:55.51, as well as a new national mark in the 100m breast with a time of 2:10.08.
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roger@vernonmorningstar.com
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