Canada has great shot at three swimming medals today at Paris Olympics

The Olympics have officially been underway for less than a day, but Canada has a decent shot at having a pretty successful hardware haul before the night is over in Paris.

In fact, they’ll be competing for as many as three medals today in the pool, on the first day of full competition at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.

While Penny Oleksiak was the marquee name that captured the hearts of Canadians over the last two Olympics in the pool, it’s more likely to be the summer of, well, Summer.

With a time of four minutes and 2.65 seconds, 17-year-old Canadian swimmer Summer McIntosh finished fourth in the 400-metre freestyle heats today and is one of Canada’s best medal hopes.

McIntosh will be competing in the final at 2:52 pm ET/11:52 am PT.

It’s a stacked field, with Australian Adrienne Titmus, the Tokyo 2020 gold medalist, and American Katie Ledecky, the Rio 2016 gold medalist, among the top competitors.

McIntosh topped Titmus’ world record in the event back in 2023 at the Canadian trials, while Titmus took it back at last year’s world championships and has held it ever since. Ledecky herself has set the world record in the event three times, though none of them are in the last eight years.

Meanwhile, Oleksiak and the women’s 4×100 relay team qualified for the team final later today, finishing sixth out of eight teams that qualified. Mary-Sophie Harvey, Brooklyn Douthwright, and Taylor Ruck swam alongside Oleksiak, with the final going at 3:34 pm ET/12:34 pm PT later today.

Oleksiak did not qualify for the Olympics in any individual events, but will be a key part of Canada’s relay teams.

The men’s 4×100 relay team made up of Finlay Knox, Yuri Kisil, Javier Acevedo and Josh Liendo also qualified, with their event going at 3:44 pm ET/12:34 pm PT.

Despite McIntosh perhaps getting more visibility over the course of the Games, Oleksiak appears to be quite happy to support her younger teammate’s rise to stardom.

“I love that there’s someone that fast in Canada, because it gives me someone that I can really strive to, like, push myself and see how fast I can get and in turn, it’s going to help her and she’s going to help me. The faster we both get, we can just see how fast Canada can get, which is fun,” Oleksiak said about McIntosh in an interview with Daily Hive back in 2023. “She’s always ready to push the envelope but I think as much as we do compete against each other, I think that’s how we push each other.”

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