Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Full name | Mark Andreas Cornelis Versfeld | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
National team | Canada | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Edmonton, Alberta | June 13, 1976|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 1.86 m (6 ft 1 in) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 75 kg (165 lb) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Strokes | Backstroke | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Club | Pacific Dolphins | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
College team | University of British Columbia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Mark Andreas Cornelis Versfeld (born June 13, 1976) is a Canadian former competitive swimmer and backstroke specialist. At the 2000 Summer Olympics, he finished in 26th position in the 100 m backstroke. [1] He won the same event and the 200 m backstroke two years earlier, at the 1998 Commonwealth Games. [2] At the 1998 Aquatic World Championships he won a silver in the 100-metre backstroke, and bronze in the 200-metre backstroke, breaking a Commonwealth record in the process. [3] He was named Canadian Male Aquatic Athlete of the Year in 1998. [2]
Two years after his birth, his family moved to Fort McMurray where he started swimming in a club at age 8. In 1981 his family relocated to Edmonton, and three years later to Calgary. [4] After the departure of his Calgary coach Deryk Snelling, Versfeld moved to Vancouver, where he trained under Tom Johnson with the University of British Columbia. [5] After mixed studies in the sciences, psychology and political science, he majored in Economics at the University of British Columbia. [6]
In 2002 he retired from active swimming and in 2004 moved to Perth, Western Australia, where he took up surfing and swim coaching. He was part of the winning team in the Rottnest 21-kilometre open-water relay swim in 2006, along with Australian Olympians Bill Kirby, Todd Pearson and Duncan Armstrong. [4]
His mother, Hella Rentema, is a former Olympic swimmer from the Netherlands. He has a sister, Kim, and a brother Niels, who is also a competitive swimmer. [6] His father Kees (Cornelis) won a Silver Medal in the 320+ age group relay at the FINA World Masters Swim Championships held in Montreal in 2014.
Giaan Leigh Rooney, OAM is an Australian former competitive swimmer and television personality. As a member of the Australian team in women's 4×100-metre medley relay, she won an Olympic gold medal and broke a world record at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Rooney is currently an Australian television presenter.
Michael George Klim, OAM is a Polish-born Australian swimmer, Olympic gold medallist, world champion, and former world record-holder of the 1990s and 2000s. He is known as the creator of straight arm freestyle.
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Andrew David Jameson is an English sports commentator and former competitive swimmer. Active as an elite swimmer in the mid-to-late 1980s he represented Great Britain in two consecutive Summer Olympics, the FINA World Championships, LEN European Championships, as well as England in the Commonwealth Games. At his peak between 1986 and 1988 he won the gold medal in 100 metre butterfly at the 1986 Commonwealth Games, the 1987 European Aquatics Championships and the 1987 Summer Universiade, as well as the 100 metre freestyle gold at the same Universiade. Winning the bronze medal at the 1986 World Aquatics Championships, Jameson's career in the pool culminated in winning the bronze medal in the 1988 Summer Olympics, his second and final Olympic Games.
Neil Cochran is a Scottish former competitive swimmer who represented Great Britain in the Olympics, European championships and World University Games, and swam for Scotland in the Commonwealth Games, during the 1980s. Cochran competed in medley and freestyle swimming events.
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Martin Harris is an English former International competitive swimmer and backstroke specialist.
Belinda Hocking is a retired Australian backstroke swimmer. She is an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder.
Katerine Savard is a Canadian competitive swimmer who specializes in women's butterfly events and freestyle relay. She holds several Canadian national records in the butterfly over the 50-, 100-, and 200-metre distances in both the short and long courses. Savard also holds the Canadian junior butterfly record in the 200-metre event. She won the gold medal at the 100-metre butterfly event at the 2013 Summer Universiade, held in Kazan. Savard also won gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in the 100-metre butterfly in Glasgow, where she set the Commonwealth record in the process. At the same games, she won a bronze medal as a member of the women's 4×100-metre medley relay team.
Luke Greenbank is an English professional swimmer who specialises in backstroke. A medalist in the 200 metre backstroke at the Olympic Games and the World and European championships, he also swam the first leg in the 2019 World and 2020 European Championship gold medal-winning Great Britain medley relay teams. He won a silver medal as lead-off for Great Britain in the 4 x 100 metre medley relay for men at the 2020 Summer Olympics. He won a gold medal as lead-off for England in the heats of the 4 x 100 metre medley relay for men at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Evgeny Mikhailovich Rylov is a Russian competitive swimmer and Olympic champion specializing in backstroke events. He won three gold medals at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics in Nanjing, and a bronze medal at his senior international debut at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan. He also won a bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and a gold medal at the 2017 World Championships in Budapest, both were in the 200 metre backstroke event. In 2018, at the 2018 World Short Course Championships, he won gold medals in the 200 metre backstroke and 50 metre backstroke. At the 2019 World Championships, he won a gold medal in the 200 metre backstroke, silver medal in the 100 metre backstroke, and silver medal in the 50 metre backstroke. He won the gold medal in the 100 metre backstroke and 200 metre backstroke at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Taylor Madison Ruck is a Canadian competitive swimmer. She won two Olympic bronze medals as part of Canada's women's 4×100 metre and 4×200 metre freestyle relay teams at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Ruck won eight medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia. Her eight medal performance of one gold, five silver, and two bronze tied her with three other athletes for the most all-time at a single Commonwealth Games, as well as making her the most decorated Canadian female athlete ever at a single Commonwealth Games. Ruck is the all-time leading medallist at the FINA World Junior Swimming Championships having won nine gold, two silver, and two bronze over the course of the 2015 and 2017 editions.
Javier Carlos Acevedo is a Canadian competitive swimmer. He competes primarily in the backstroke events. Acevedo won two bronze medals at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships as part of both the mixed 4×100 m freestyle relay and the 4×100 m mixed medley relay. He has also won a gold medal at the 2015 FINA World Junior Swimming Championships in the 4×100 m mixed freestyle relay and a silver in the 50 m backstroke. Acevado was a former Junior world record holder in the 100 m backstroke event.
Kylie Jacqueline Masse is a Canadian competitive swimmer. She is a four-time Olympic medallist, having tied for the bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the 100 m backstroke and then won silver medals at the 2020 Summer Olympics in both the 100 m and 200 m backstroke and a bronze medal in the 4x100 m medley. Masse is a two-time world champion in the 100 m backstroke, breaking the eight year old world record in the process, which she held until July 2018. While winning her title in Budapest at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships she became the first Canadian woman to become a world champion in a swimming event. She subsequently became the first Canadian woman to defend her world title at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships. She is currently the captain for the Toronto Titans of the International Swimming League.
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