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Hau-Li Fan leads Canadians at FINA Marathon Swim World Series

News –

DOHA, Qatar – Hau-Li Fan of Burnaby, B.C., was Canada’s top finisher at the first FINA Marathon Swim World Series of 2019.

Fan, who trains with UBC, finished the 10-kilometre event 22nd in the field of 80 swimmers from 25 countries.

“Hau-Li gets better tactically with each race he swims,” said Mark Perry, Swimming Canada’s distance and open water coach. “He was twelve seconds off tenth place which is where he needs to be at the World Championships this summer to qualify for the Olympics.”

The course consisted of four 2.5-km loops in Doha Bay along Doha’s central business district.

“This is only Hau-Li’s sixth 10-km race at this level. When you look at only the top two swimmers per nation, which is how many you can enter at the World Championships and Olympics, he was 17th.”

Canada sent a four-swimmer team to the event.

Nicolas Masse-Savard, of Montreal finished 44th, Eric Hedlin of Victoria was 50th, and Jon McKay, also of Victoria was 57th.

Next up for Canadian open water swimmers is the Canadian Open Water Swimming Trials taking place April 27 in the Cayman Islands. The Trials will select the swimmers to represent Canada in July at the FINA World Championships set for Gwangju, Korea.

Full results from the FINA Marathon Swim Series are available here.