Sydney Pickrem of Halifax, Nova Scotia won a bronze medal in the women’s 200 metre breaststroke at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju, South Korea on Friday. In the process, Pickrem made Canadian sports history as she became the first Canadian woman to win three career individual medals at the World Aquatics Championships according to Agnes Wong of the Canadian Olympic Committee. Pickrem had previously won bronze in the women’s 400 metre individual medley at the 2017 World Aquatics Championship in Budapest and the women’s 200 metre individual medley on Monday in Gwangju.
In the women’s 200 metre breaststroke, Pickrem won the bronze medal with a time of 2:22.9. She was a quarter of a second faster than Shiwen Ye of China, who finished fourth with a time of 2:23.15. Yuliya Efimova of Russia won the gold medal with a time of 2:20.17. Tatjana Schoenmaker of South Africa won the silver medal with a time of 2:22.52.
The 2019 World Aquatics Championships have been a glorious meet for Canadian high performance female swimmers and will put them in good stead as they prepare for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. They all will be returning to the Asian continent a year from now. To date, six of Canada’s nine medals at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships have come in women’s swimming.
