Emily Overholt smashes PB to take 2nd gold at national trials

In shattering her personal best time by 2.78 seconds, Emily Overholt won gold in the Women’s 400 Freestyle at the 2015 Canadian Swimming Trials on Friday evening.

The West Vancouver Otter led out of the gate in this stacked field and never faltered to finish with a time of 4:10.07, ahead of Tabitha Baumann and Brittany MacLean respectively.

Though admitting to not feeling well in the morning, Overholt still won her third medal of the week, adding to her gold in 200m and silver in the 400m individual medley.

“I felt a lot less pressure, as I made the team yesterday, so I just went for it,” said the silver medalist from the 2014 Commonwealth Games. “It’s not my best event and so I was pretty happy with it.”

She kept pushing herself, not worried if she would get the best of the distance or if the distance would get the best of her. The result was her lead increasing at every turn.

“I was not feeling too good this morning,” said the 17 year old. “I just tried to go for it and hope for the best.”

As relaxed as Overholt was in gunning for it, the same could not be said for Baumann.

In finishing second, the daughter of Olympic gold medalist Alex Baumann was two seconds off of her personal best time and spoke about whether the result or time was most upsetting.

“I think it’s both, like I mean obviously the time I always want to do a personal best and if I can do a personal best and still come second or third I would probably be happier than if I had won it and still be back three seconds.

With such a good field, it might have been difficult for Baumann to notice the winner over in lane eight, but she said it didn’t make a difference. 

“It didn’t really throw me off, I thought maybe I could catch her in the last 100,” the New Zealand born swimmer said.

In a previous version of this story, the 400m freestyle and 400m individual medley results were interchanged. The Observer apologizes for the error.