The Canadian contingent has arrived in the Paris 2024 Olympics with a lot of baggage, and a lot of it came from the swimming contingent. Canada is currently blessed with some of the best swimmers in the world, and the first races of the Olympics illustrated that.
With a strong performance in the preliminary rounds of the 400-metre freestyle, their star attraction Summer McIntosh finished second in her heat (4:02.42) to qualify for finals later Saturday. The 17-year-old is the greatest hope of Canada for gold in the Paris 2024 swimming events and her first performance gives fans big hope.
Despite being a teenager, the Toronto-born star was the biggest highlight of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics campaign where she finished fourth and raised the eyebrows of many. With four medals from the 2022 and 2023 World Championships, McIntosh now has a lot of experience for Paris 2024 Olympics.
Summer McIntosh will compete for a medal later Saturday at Paris La Defense Arena. Despite Summer McIntosh’s headline-grabbing performance, Canadian swimmers also qualified for multiple finals on the first day of the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Relay Team in Final of Paris 2024
The men’s 4×100 relay team also qualified for finals with a time of 3:12.77. Finlay Knox, Yuri Kisil, Javier Acevedo and Josh Liendo appear to be in good shape, making the relay a possible medal event. The Canadians will have to take care of the Chinese team who recorded a 3:11.62 which isn’t far, but as everyone knows, swimming is all about milliseconds.
The Canadian contingent didn’t stop there as Penny Oleksiak, Mary-Sophie Harvey, Brooklyn Douthwright, and Taylor Ruck also advanced to finals in the Women’s 100 relay in 3:35.29 time stamp. They may have finished sixth, but the time difference between them and the top Australian team (3:31.57) isn’t huge and if they level up for finals, they could turn the tables at Paris 2024 Olympics.
Watch swimming this afternoon.
— Ben Steiner (@BenSteiner00) July 27, 2024
Potential for 3 Canadian medals and Summer McIntosh's first at the Games.
2:30 pm ET – 100m fly SF –Mac Neil
2:52 pm ET -400m free F –
3:34 pm ET –
3:44 pm ET –
Canada has high hopes for at least three golds in Swimming at the Paris 2024 Olympics, and the first day of the show was promising. Pairs La Defense Arena is going to be an exciting finale with Summer McIntosh looking solid.
