Canadian Olympic star Summer McIntosh will have a shot at making it four gold medals later on today.
McIntosh will be part of the Canadian women’s 4×100 metre medley relay team as they swim in the final today. Kylie Masse, Sophie Angus, and Maggie MacNeil will be alongside her.
It’s a bit of a different lineup than what Canada rode with during the initial preliminary heats of this event on Saturday. A team of Penny Oleksiak, Ingrid Wilm, Mary Sophie-Harvey, and Angus won their heat and came second overall, only behind Australia, propelling Canada into the finals.
As the team looks for a medal, it seems they brought in McIntosh, Masse, and MacNeil to finish what those other athletes started.
CBC’s Devin Heroux confirmed the lineup for Canadian relay teams.
CANADA 🇨🇦 SWIMMING RELAYS
Women:
Kylie Masse
Sophie Angus
Maggie Mac Neil
Summer McIntoshMen:
Blake Tierney
Finlay Knox
Ilya Kharun
Josh Liendo— Devin Heroux (@Devin_Heroux) August 4, 2024
The 4×100 metre relay consists of four separate legs, with each swimmer using a different stroke. For the Canadians, it appears that Masse will be doing the backstroke, Angus with the breaststroke, MacNeil in the butterfly, and McIntosh as the anchor on the freestyle.
It’s a bit of a risk for the Canadian team to take out Oleksiak in favour of McIntosh. Though the 17-year-old has been lights out at this Olympic Games, with three gold medals and a silver, McIntosh’s 100m freestyle times are slower than what Olekiak was able to record in the preliminary heat.
Canada is looking to grab a medal in this event for the second-straight Olympic Games after picking up bronze at Tokyo 2020. The Canadian women also have a chance to make history in the final as Canada has never gotten a silver or gold medal in the event, finishing with the bronze on four separate occasions since the event was introduced to the Olympics in 1960.
If Canada manages to get on the podium, it won’t be all for naught for Oleksiak, Wilm, and Sophie-Harvey, as all three will also get medals for participating in the preliminary heats.
A medal for Oleksiak would bump her Canadian Olympic medal count to eight.
The final will be in Paris at 10:32 am PT/1:32 pm ET.