Audrey Lacroix won the 200 metre butterfly in convincing fashion on Saturday, but thought she had fallen short of another goal.

The winning time of 2:09.22 was just five one-hundredths short of the FINA World Championships qualifying time of 2:09.17.

Two hours later, however, when the Worlds team was announced, there was her name thanks to coming under the secondary requirements in the somewhat convoluted guidelines.

Right after the race, Lacroix had been somewhat subdued.

“It’s great,” she said, following her win at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre. “But it’s not what I expected.”

The 31-year-old led from start to finish, fending off competitive efforts from Noemie Thomas, who was second with a time of 2:11.19, and Jacomie Strydom, who was third at 2:12.34.

Lacroix will now prepare for two events in the summer, rather than the one.

“I don’t know my schedule yet,” the Montreal, Que. native said. “Hopefully, in a couple of weeks we can get a little bit faster in the 200m.

“I definitely lost some speed at the meet this week. Like, the 100m wasn’t my best but it was still a great time and I ran my best time in the 50m so we’ll if we can get a little more training.”

Thomas, the silver medallist, had previously qualified for Team Canada in the 100m butterfly on Friday. She added a personal best in the 200m fly to cap off a productive meet.

“Yeah, I think every time you get a personal best no matter what meet you are at it is really good,” Thomas said. “It shows you are improving in a lot of different parts of the race.”

The race was one of several between Lacroix and Thomas, who are usually joined by Montreal’s Katerine Savard, who was out with an illness.

“I knew that tonight I would be pretty much by myself because Katerine was sick and had to scratch the 200m,” Lacroix said. “You know when you have someone to push you in the pool like Katerine at the last world trials for me, I wish that she would be there.”

Lacroix is focused on making the most of her next opportunity.

“I would like to add another gold at Pan Am,” Lacroix said. “I have one from 12 years ago so that would be pretty cool to add another this summer in Canada.”

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