BEIJING - Canada's swim program, rebuilt after the disaster at the Athens Games, began showing some progress Sunday at the Beijing Olympics.
Brian Johns of Richmond, B.C., was seventh in the 400-metre individual medley race with a time of four minutes 13.38 seconds, while the women's 4x100-metre relay team of Julia Wilkinson, Erica Morningstar, Genevieve Saumur and Audrey Lacroix were eighth in a Canadian record time of 3:38.32.
With two finals made and four national records already broken, the Canadians are well on their way to putting the mess of 2004 behind them, when Canada made just three finals and swimmers failed to match personal bests.
"I'm really pleased with the Canandian performances so far as many of us have gone lifetime best," said Johns, who broke an eight-year-old Canadian record to reach the final. "And we will see more of us fighting to get a lane in the finals."
Much work remains for the swimmers to hit the podium, although Canadians have shown they're headed in the right direction.
"We were in the race the whole time," said Wilkinson. "We showed we could race with the rest of the world. That's really exciting for us."
Canada was still looking for its first medal of the Games midway through Sunday's action.
Several rowers kept their chase of the podium alive, as all of Canada's lightweight crews advanced to the semifinals later this week at the rowing regatta.
Melanie Kok of St. Catharines, Ont., and Tracy Cameron of Shubenacadie, N.S., were second in their women's double heat.
In the men's double, Doug Vandor of Dewittville, Que., and Cameron Sylvester of Caledon, Ont., also finished second.
The men's lightweight four of Mike Lewis and Iain Brambell of Victoria, Liam Parsons of Thunder Bay, Ont., and Jon Beare of Toronto were also second to move on.
The semis are set for Wednesday and Thursday.
The news wasn't as good for Canada's only boxer at the Summer Olympics.
Adam Trupish was soundly beaten 20-1 by Bakhyt Sarsekbayev of Kazakhstan in an opening-round, 69-kilogram bout.
The 29-year-old from Windsor, Ont., was knocked down in the first minute of the match. Trupish was in is his third straight Olympics, although he was a team alternate in 2000.
In other Canadian action Sunday:
- Andrew Dabeka of Ottawa lost his first-round men's badminton match 21-11, 21-11 to South Korea's Sunghwan Park. "I struggled with the wind and conditions in the hall and it was difficult finding my rhythm," said Dabeka. "He is big and just controls the game."
- In shooting, Giuseppe Di Salvatore of Surrey, B.C., was 26th in the men's trap with 112 points while Avianna Chao of Toronto was 39th in the women's 10-metre air pistol with 370 points.
- The men's water polo team opened the Olympic tournament with a 16-6 loss to Spain, bronze medallists at the 2007 world championships. "Our team is young, and I think we were impressed and nervous," said Nathaniel Miller of Pierrefonds, Que. "We did not play to our usual level. We're disappointed, but we'll do better in our next game."
- Judoka Sasha Mehmedovic of Toronto made it to the round of 16 in the 66-kilogram competition before falling to Benjamin Darbelet of France.
- Fencer Igor Tikhomirov of Richmond Hill, Ont., made it to the round of 16 in the men's epee before getting eliminated by Fabrice Jeannet of France.
- Canadians Selena O'Hanlon of Elgin, Ont., Mike Winter of Toronto, Calgarians Sandra Donnelly and Kyle Carter, and Samantha Taylor of Richmond, B.C., sit ninth in the team dressage after the second day of eventing. O'Hanlon was the top Canadian in the individual dressage at 20th.
