Summer McIntosh sets Olympic record in winning third gold medal in swimming

CITYnews halifax / By Sportsnet Staff and The Canadian Press

Summer McIntosh is Canada’s first triple gold medallist in an Olympic Games.

The Toronto swimmer rallied in the last 50 metres to win the women’s 200-metre individual medley in an Olympic-record time of two minutes, 6.56 seconds — 0.33 seconds ahead of American Kate Douglass.

Australian Kaylee McKeown got bronze after American Alex Walsh was disqualified.

American-born Sydney Pickrem whose parents are from Halifax, N.S., was sixth.

“Absolutely unreal,” McIntosh told CBC Olympics. “There was a lot of buildup going into this race. Throughout training, it was one of the races I thought about the most just because it’s Day 8 and everyone’s getting pretty tired at this point I’d say. I knew it was going to be close between all us girls.

“That last 50 was just all the years of training that have led up to this moment. I know that I can bring it home,” McIntosh said.

McIntosh also won gold in the 200-metre butterfly and 400-metre individual medley in Paris, to go along with silver in the 400-metre freestyle.

The 17-year-old Toronto native is the first Canadian to win three gold medals at one Olympics. She joins fellow swimmer Penny Oleksiak with the most medals ever won (four) by a Canadian at a single Olympics.

McIntosh was asked how she doesn’t get fazed by the pressure.

“I think just because I enjoy it so much,” she said. “I love winning, everyone loves winning. I love pushing my body to its limits and seeing all my training and all those hours of work come to fruition for two minutes, four minutes.”

It’s the third medal of the day for Canada in the pool after both Joshua Liendo and Ilya Kharun won silver and bronze, respectively, in the men’s 100-metre butterfly.

Hungary’s Kristof Malik captured gold in 49.90 seconds ahead of Liendo in 49.99 and Kharun in 50.45.

It was Kharun’s second medal of the meet after he took bronze in the 200-metre butterfly. Linedo just missed a medal on Friday, finishing fourth in the 50-metre freestyle.

The two became the first Canadian men to reach the podium in the 100 fly since Bruce Robertson’s silver in Munich in 1972. It was the first time two Canadian male swimmers finished in the medals in the same Olympic race.

The haul in the pool gave Canada four medals on the day after the women’s eight rowing team took silver early Saturday.

EVENTFUL START FOR CANADA ON DAY 8

The women’s eight rowing team took silver early Saturday, extending Canada’s streak to eight days on the podium since medals started being awarded after the opening ceremony. Canada’s best opening medal streak is nine days, set at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The Canadian rowers finished with a time of five minutes 58.84 seconds at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, behind gold medallist Romania which finished in five minutes 54.39 seconds.

Canada found itself in a tight battle with Britain for second with 500 metres to go, but was able to hold off its rival to claim silver.

The Romanian team put on a dominant performance, leading for three-quarters of the race and finishing four seconds in front.

“At the end of the day it was all about belief,” rower Avalon Wasteneys of Campbell River, B.C., said. “We went out on that course and we knew that we were going to give our best possible race we could do, on the day it mattered.”

And yet despite the ecstasy, there was also plenty of agony for Canada on Day 8.

There was no silver lining for Damian Warner in his title defence. The Canadian decathlete fell out of medal contention when he hit the bar three times in the pole vault, dropping him from second to 18th with two events to go.

The 34-year-old Warner, from London, Ont., was sitting in second in the decathlon with 6,428 points, 72 behind Germany’s Leo Neugebauer, after seven events before failing to score in the pole vault.

Warner was looking to defend his Olympic title from the Tokyo Games in 2021, where he had set an Olympic record with 9,018 points.

Canada had high hopes for another decathlon medal heading into the Paris. But defending world champion Pierce LePage pulled out shortly before the Games began to focus on his recovery from a herniated disc, and Warner’s medal bid ended in heartbreak.

The Canadian women’s soccer team’s memorable and tumultuous run at the Paris Olympics ended with a 4-2 loss to Germany on penalty kicks following a scoreless draw at Stade de Marseille.

“I can’t quite find the tears. I think I shed them all this week,” defender Vanessa Gilles said following the loss.

Canada, the defending Olympic champions, advanced to the knockout stage in Paris by winning all three pool games despite a hefty six-point penalty imposed by FIFA for a drone spying scandal that marred their campaign.

The discipline came after members of Canada’s coaching staff were caught using drones to spy on New Zealand’s practices before the opening of competition.

Meanwhile, Montreal’s Felix Auger-Aliassime missed a chance to add a second tennis medal in Paris with a loss to Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti in the men’s singles bronze-medal match.

Saturday’s medals gave Canada a total of 15 – four gold, four silver, and seven bronze – at the halfway point of the Games.