Summer McIntosh replaced Penny Oleksiak in Olympic relay final
Canadian Olympic star Summer McIntosh just missed out on her fifth medal in the Paris 2024 games earlier today.
McIntosh was a part of the Canadian women’s 4×100 metre medley relay team as they swam to a fourth-place finish. Kylie Masse, Sophie Angus, and Maggie MacNeil were the three other swimmers who swam in the final.
It was 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.
For the final, it seems they brought in McIntosh, Masse, and MacNeil to try and 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, Masse did backstroke, Angus did the breaststroke, MacNeil had the butterfly, and McIntosh was the anchor on the freestyle.
It was 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 were slower than what Olekiak was able to record in the preliminary heat.
Canada failed to pick up a medal this time around after picking up bronze at Tokyo 2020. The Canadian women have won bronze in this event on four separate occasions since the race was introduced in 1960.