Canada teammates Summer McIntosh, left to right, Taylor Ruck, Penny Oleksiak and Margaret Mac Neil hug after competing in the women's 4 x 100-metre freestyle relay final at the 2024 Summer Olympics.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
About 40 minutes after Summer McIntosh won Canada’s first medal at the Olympics, she got back in the pool in a bid to try to get Canada’s relay team on the podium.
Canada jostled its roster, putting Maggie Mac Neil in the leadoff spot, where she doesn’t usually race, in an effort to give McIntosh, who swam the third of four legs, a bit more time to rest.
But in the end it wasn’t enough, as the women’s 4x100-metre relay team placed fourth, despite leaning on Mac Neil and McIntosh, two of its biggest stars, in a final push for the podium.
Mac Neil, McIntosh, Taylor Ruck, and Penny Oleksiak, serving as the anchor, swam a combined 3 minutes 32.99 seconds on the opening night of the swimming competition at the Paris Olympics.
Australia won the gold medal in a time of 3.28.92. The Americans claimed silver in 3.30.20, and China took bronze in 3.30.30.
It was the same event in which Canada won a silver medal three years ago in Tokyo.
“Obviously we were a little bit disappointed. I think we wanted that medal real bad and we were really fighting for it,” Oleksiak said.
“We weren’t going to go up without a fight and I think we showed that through that race.”
The event came roughly 40 minutes after McIntosh won silver in the 400-metre freestyle. Minutes after she stood on the podium, McIntosh joined the team as they were walking out to the starting blocks and swam the third leg for Canada.
“They were walking us out and Summer popped up in the ready room. So that was really cool,” Oleksiak said.
Mac Neil said swimming in the leadoff position was unusual for her, but necessary under the circumstances.
“Honestly that made me the most anxious I think. It’s not a position I’m comfortable with. Usually I prefer to be second or third,” Mac Neil said.
“We thought that would be our best chance, and we wanted to give Summer an extra minute or two knowing she had a 400 free.”
Oleksiak was looking to make history in the race by boosting her record medal count. Canada’s most-decorated Olympian entered the event with seven medals, a mark she set three years ago at the Tokyo Summer Games.
The Canadians were attempting a come-from-behind bid for the podium. The team entered the relay final ranked sixth after the semi-finals, which were raced Saturday morning by Oleksiak, Ruck, Mary-Sophie Harvey and Brooklyn Douthwright.
“I think it’s all part of the experience, you’ve got to have some lows with the highs and this is our low right now,” Oleksiak said. “But we’ve got what eight, nine days of racing left, so we’ve got a lot of highs coming I’m really excited for.”
McIntosh has a busy schedule in Paris, and could swim in as many as five or six finals. She is a contender in three more individual events, and could be tapped by Canada to swim another relay final in addition to Saturday night’s race.