Canada concludes Olympic swimming with eight medals

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Canada’s relay teams couldn’t tie a bow on one of the country’s most successful Olympic swim meets Sunday, but the team’s depth produced a record number of medals in individual events in Paris.

Eight medals in individual distances, including Summer McIntosh’s three golds and a silver, was the most at a non-boycotted Summer Games.

Canada’s host team in Montreal in 1976 also won eight medals, but three were in relays. Canadian swimmers produced 10 medals in the 1984 boycotted Games in Los Angeles, including two in relays.

Canada ranked third in overall medals in Paris behind juggernaut United States with 28 and Australia with 18, and ahead of host France’s seven. The French ranked ahead of Canada in gold, however, with four from Leon Marchand.

McIntosh moved into a new sport stratosphere as Canada’s first triple gold medallist at an Olympic Games, winter or summer. She will be 21 years old in Los Angeles in 2028.

“It’s been kind of some of the craziest days of my life this past week and a bit, so just trying to soak in this moment and know that this does only come around every four years,” she said. “I’m already thinking about L.A., to be honest.”

McIntosh captured gold in the 200-metre butterfly and 400 and 200 individual medleys, and produced two Olympic records doing it. She laid the foundation for those swims with a 400-metre silver on opening night.

“It’s new territory,” said Swimming Canada high-performance director John Atkinson.

“When you are groundbreaking in doing those things, aiming for individual medals and relays, it’s a hard ask. Not many athletes have done that. You’re talking Katie Ledecky, Michael Phelps, (Mark) Spitz, Leon Marchand, and Summer McIntosh. She lives in that category now.

The Toronto teenager didn’t get a storybook conclusion Sunday with a fifth medal, which would have tied speedskater Cindy Klassen for the most by a Canadian at any Olympic Games.

The freestyle anchor leg of the women’s medley relay was McIntosh’s 13th race in nine days, from her freestyle heats on opening morning to the medley relays that closed out the competition.

Backstroker Kylie Masse, breaststroker Sophie Angus, and butterfly specialist Maggie Mac Neil kept Canada in silver-medal position, and McIntosh ran second at the turn.