Canada’s Marie-Sophie Harvey earned two second-place finishes as well as third place as the International Swimming League (ISL) playoffs got underway on Thursday.
Swimming for Energy Standard, Harvey started off her run in Eindhoven, Netherlands, in the women’s 200-metre backstroke event.
The 22-year-old came from behind in the pool to touch the wall in two minutes 5.26 seconds, just ahead of her third-place colleague Anastasiya Shkurdai.
The scores from their combined rankings resulted in a great haul despite the spectacular swim by Cali Condors’ Beata Nelson, who stayed ahead of the competition to earn first in 2:03.17.
The clash between the 2019 and 2020 ISL championship-winning teams continued throughout the first day of the first playoff match, which also includes Team Iron and DC Trident.
The Cali Condors head into day two at the top of the standings with 287 points. Energy Standard is in second with 270, while DC Trident sits third (179) and Iron in fourth (164.)
The women’s 200-metre individual medley saw Harvey in third place with a time of 2:07.87. Canada’s Bailey Andison swam to fifth place for DC Trident in 2:08.75.
Harvey also earned her other second-place finish as part of Energy Standard’s 4×100-metre medley relay squad. Her team raced to the end in 3:50.93.
Also competing in this event was fellow Canadian Rachel Nicol, who swam for DC Trident. Despite finishing seventh in 3:55.11, her team managed to escape having their points swept away to the winner via a jackpot.
But DC Trident wasn’t so fortunate in the women’s 4×100-metre free relay, where Nicol’s team had another seventh-place swim in 3:40.28 and got dinged by the jackpot, courtesy of Energy Standard.
Swimming with the Cali Condors team in the same relay event, Canada’s Katerine Savard helped earn a time of 3:33.93 to end fifth and avoid that fate. Also competing in the women’s 400-metre freestyle, Savard swam to fifth place in 4:06.86.
