Victoria Poon

Biography

Please note: the information below is accurate as of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Victoria Poon competed at her second consecutive Olympic Games in 2012, finishing 15^th in the 50m freestyle and 11^th in the 4x100m freestyle relay with teammates Julia Wilkinson, Samantha Cheverton and Heather MacLean.  It was a more successful experience for her than her first Olympic Games at Beijing 2008 when she was struck by a case of chicken pox.  Quarantined in the Olympic Village, she was unable to compete in the 4x100m freestyle relay but did race the 50m freestyle, managing a 30^th place finish.

Poon had started swimming at a summer camp and made her first international team in 2006, competing at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne where she won bronze in the 4x100m freestyle relay and was fourth in the 50m freestyle.  She also competed at the 2006 Pan Pacific Championships, winning silver in the 4x100m freestyle relay.

In 2009 Poon established herself as Canada’s top female freestyle sprinter.  At the FINA World Championships in Rome she set the national record in the 50m freestyle en route to a 13^th place finish.  She had her individual international breakthrough at the 2010 Pan Pacific Championships, winning bronze in the 50m freestyle.  She would just miss the podium in the same event at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, finishing fourth.  Poon competed at her third FINA World Championships in 2011, highlighted by a sixth place finish in the 4x100m freestyle relay.