World Cup swimming comes to Toronto, a rare home game for Canada’s best

Kylie Masse’s swimming accolades are extensive and, distilled to the basics, go something like this: four Olympic medals, nine Commonwealth Games medals and 14 world championship medals. She set a world record in 2017 in the 100-metre backstroke, and in 2021 became just the third woman to dip below the 58-second barrier in that event.

For years she’s been Canada’s most consistent individual medallist on the world swimming stage, and she’s quite sure there’s more to come.

“If I didn’t think so, I’d be in trouble,” says the 26-year-old from LaSalle, Ont. with a laugh.

Masse will be among 14 Canadian Olympians competing at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre from Friday to Sunday, in the second stop of the FINA World Cup circuit.

Hundreds of elite swimmers from 39 countries will compete for prize money and look to hone their skills and race tactics ahead of December’s short-course world championships in Australia.

That this event is a 25-metre competition, rather than the 50-metre distance used for the Olympics and worlds, is a welcome challenge for Masse.

“I’m a stronger long-course swimmer,” she says, “(but) in short course there’s a lot more underwater than swimming, which is my strength.”

The rules allow competitors to butterfly kick underwater for as much as 15 metres.

“There’s a lot more focus on skills and underwaters and, yes, I’ve improved upon those over the last number of years, but there are people here and in all the other World Cup stops that are way better at the underwater skills than me,” she says. “That’s motivating, to just be pushed and challenge myself to try and do new things, or push myself a bit further.”

Ultimately, fine-tuning turns, improving her times underwater and other little details that matter a lot in short course may help her continue a long streak of success.

“I’m really just using this opportunity to focus on what I want to improve on and try some different things strategically, tactically and technically, as well to just better my swimming and see what I can do moving forward.”

Those little details could add up to the fraction of a second that Masse needs to reclaim the world 100-metre backstroke title she held for five years, and get to the wall before American Regan Smith and Australian Kaylee McKeown — the only other women who have broken the 58-second mark.

Smith touched the wall just before Masse at the FINA world championships in Budapest in June, and it was McKeown who got there just ahead of Masse at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games later in the summer. At both events, Masse won gold in the 50-metre backstroke. She’s kept that streak going on the World Cup circuit.

Last weekend in Berlin, Masse was first in the 50-metre backstroke and finished second to American Beata Nelson in the 100 and 200. Masse will also compete in the final World Cup event starting Nov. 3 in Indianapolis.

World Cups provide a chance to win some money — the total purse for the three-event short-course circuit is $1.2 million (U.S.) — in a less pressure-filled environment than the Olympics or worlds. The format encourages swimmers to race at more than one stop, and in a variety of events.

Masse, a longtime backstroke specialist, is also down for the 100-metre freestyle and 50-metre butterfly in Toronto. Asked when she last raced those events at an international meet, she paused: “At a world event? Probably never.”

This is still early in the season for competitive swimmers, but it’s a chance to gauge where they’re at with the short-course worlds only two months away. And it’s an important opportunity for Canadians in particular, said Ryan Mallette, head coach of Canada’s high-performance centre at the Toronto venue.

“The greatest thing is that we get to race some of the world’s best swimmers at home,” he said. “A home crowd and our Canadian athletes getting experience racing at home is something that really pays off for years to come.”

The last international swim meet held in Canada was the 2015 Pan Am Games. Swimming Canada credits its international resurgence in the pool, highlighted by six medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics and another six at last summer’s Tokyo Games, to hosting those Games.

FINA World Cup Toronto

Where? Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre

When? Friday to Sunday

9:30 a.m. heats

6 p.m. finals

Streaming cbcsports.ca

Tickets Ticketmaster.ca and at the door

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