Former UNLV swimmer making a splash with Team Canada

By Rob Miech

Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009 | 2:01 a.m.

Former UNLV swimmer Joe Bartoch and the rest of Team Canada had been away from home for more than a month when the world championships ended in Rome.

They itched to backstroke or butterfly home through the Mediterranean and across the pond, but they still had to compete in the British Grand Prix in Leeds, England.

It was an auspicious splash at the John Charles Centre for Sport, and Bartoch hasn’t minded extending his stay in Europe with a victory romp through Croatia as a world-record holder.

“We have been celebrating every night,” Bartoch wrote in an e-mail from Supetar on the Dalmatian island of Brac. “A long-awaited vacation.”

Two Sundays ago in Leeds, Bartoch swam the butterfly in the third leg of Canada’s record-setting performance in the men’s short-course 400-meter medley relay.

The Canadian quartet – led by Jake Tapp in the backstroke, then Paul Kornfield in the breaststroke, Bartoch and capped by Brent Hayden’s rocket-fueled freestyle – checked in at 3 minutes, 23.33 seconds.

Russia, with a 3:24.29 in April 2008 in Manchester, England, previously held the world record. Before that, Australia and the U.S. had dominated the event for 15 years.

In Rome, Canadian swimmers won only two silver medals and a bronze.

“No one was excited to swim in Leeds,” Bartoch wrote, “until we started swimming well.”

Two days before the medley relay glory, the men’s 800-meter freestyle relay team set a world record. All told, Canadian swimmers lowered national records 30 times in Leeds.

Bartoch said the Commonwealth competition was important because that’s where the next Olympic swimming competition will be staged in 2012.

That might have tipped off his plans, but the 26-year-old former Rebel said he’s taking his swimming career year to year.

At his first Olympics a year ago in Beijing, Bartoch tied for 34th in the 100-meter fly and was part of a 400-meter medley relay team that finished 10th.

Through 1992, Canada had won a men’s medley relay medal in five of six Olympics. But there haven’t been any since, so maybe Leeds will lead to a bigger splash in 2012.

“We are already thinking of swimming well in 2012, so we gotta start now,” Bartoch wrote. “Every opportunity. Canada has had a great history with that relay.”

When he saw Tapp and Kornfield rip off their impressive first two legs in Leeds, Bartoch shifted to his afterburners, too.

“The front two guys swam FAST,” Bartoch wrote. “That’s when most of us knew we had a shot. I was sorta the weak link and knew I had to get in gear for a chance.

“It was great to see those first two guys swim fast. And on the anchor, we always have Brent Hayden, a former world champion. It got real after that. I couldn’t sleep for two days thinking about that relay.”

The team hasn’t had much stability in recent years, but Leeds might have solidified those slots through that next big meet in England in 2012.

“We have never really had the same medley team year after year,” Bartoch wrote. “The back and breaststrokers have always been jockeying for position, and this was the first time I went (behind) Kornfield.

“It just sort of aligned that night in Leeds, for sure.”

Bartoch will begin attending graduate school, to coach in the future, when he returns home to London, Ontario. In the meantime, he’s enjoying his first real vacation after a major international meet.

He and two friends spent time in Split before heading to Supetar, and Dubravnic was next up on their itinerary.

He said something about “gorgeous babes,” a very generous exchange rate and loving everything about Las Vegas, where he returns for annual alumni functions.

On the Croatian beaches, Bartoch has showed off some new artwork – his third tattoo, on the right side of his rib cage, highlights the Olympic rings below a Canadian maple leaf.

“A tradition of Canadian Olympic swimmers,” he wrote. “A well-earned symbol that helps inspire the young kids to swim hard and represent their country.”

Like four of them just did on an August night in England.