After just two out of six days of competition in Abu Dhabi, Canada took home five medals, including three golds, which already represent the country’s best performance at any edition of the FINA World Swimming Championships.
On Friday, Maggie McNeill raced towards the wall to give Canada the gold in the 4x50m mixed freestyle relay. Joshua Lindo, Yuri Kessel, and Kayla Sanchez swam in front of her. McNeil grabbed two swimmers in the latter part of the race, and his touchdown to the wall in lane 1 allowed Canada to set a Canadian record of 1 minute 28.55 seconds over first place.
“Being the last or last swimmer is always stressful,” McNeill agreed in a statement from the Canadian Swimming website.
The win broke the Canadian record of 1:29.83 that awarded bronze at the 2016 worlds held in Windsor, Ontario, of which Kessel was also on the team. Quebec’s Catherine Savard of Montreal CAMO will also receive a medal for her participation in the morning relay qualifiers, as will Rebecca Smith.
“My job this morning was to help the team qualify. I knew in advance that I was not going to swim in the final. My 50m car was very good, I was really satisfied. Everyone did well in the final, and it was great to see the stands.”
On Thursday, Savard and his buddies McNeill, Sanchez and Smith tied for the first time with the United States in the 4×100 freestyle relay.
“Since 2016, swimming in Canada has taken off tremendously. It is not a fluke, there are amazing performances every year. We can see that also on the boys side, they are really excellent and they are very important in winning the gold medal,” Savard said.
Masse . new record
Kylie Maas added a silver medal in the 100 backstroke on Friday, breaking the Canadian record in the process.
It was Sweden’s Louise Hanson who took the gold by swimming the distance in 55.20 seconds, directly ahead of Mas. The latter hit the wall at 55.22 and beat the 55.61 national mark set by Ingrid Willem in September.
Nine women and three men, all members of the Canadian team for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, compete in the six-day competition. The event runs through Tuesday.
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