PARIS—Maybe it was Kylie Masse’s last chance at this. She is 28, and though she is a stubborn and dedicated swimmer, Los Angeles 2028 is four years away.
She already had a bronze medal from the Rio Olympics, and those two silvers from Tokyo, and here she swam the 100-metre backstroke, her favourite event, and finished fourth.Ìý
And then came the 200 backstroke, perhaps her final individual Olympic event, and Masse cemented her place in Canadian swimming history. She started in lane two, with the seventh-fastest qualifying time. She went out hellaciously fast, ahead of world-record pace in the first 100. At the turn, she was second. By the 150 mark, American Regan Smith and Aussie Katie McKeown were pulling away, and American Phoebe Bacon was seven one-hundreds of a second ahead of Masse, too.
Then came the stubbornness. At the start, Masse swims in an almost Zen mode she calls easy speed; if she doesn’t try too hard to windmill and instead holds the water more, she goes faster. The final 50, though, was about nerves and guts.
Masse has been doing this a long time. She peaked with two world titles and a world record between the 2016 and 2021 Olympics. She came back after Tokyo but followed departed coach Ben Titley to Spain, prompting a semi-vagabond period. She lost her speed; she didn’t swim under 2:07 again in the 200 backstroke until this year’s Canadian trials. She had never considered quitting. Her confidence came back.
And that last 50 was Masse holding on. She out-touched Bacon at the wall by four one-hundredths of a second for bronze. Masse is the first Canadian swimmer with individual medals at three different Olympics, and the first Canadian woman with individual medals in three straight Olympics. She has five medals overall, second behind Penny Oleksiak, is beloved in the swim program, and her legacy is carved in stone. She was asked what she was most proud of.
“I feel like at this point in my career — and at my age, a lot of people bring that factor in — and I don’t know, it’s easy to get deterred by what other people think, or what other people haven’t done,†Masse said. “And I’m just proud of myself to have continued to believe in myself.
“It’s not always sunshine and rainbows, and there are moments when you might feel more alone, and you can’t really see the light at the end of the tunnel but, you know, (it is) persevering through those and continuing to show up and dedicating myself to this.â€
She was almost joined on a podium by Josh Liendo, which was a surprise. Liendo snuck into the men’s 50-metre final thanks to a withdrawal, with the eighth-fastest time. He had talked all week about how he needed to get excited to swim sprint events, and he’d had some trouble doing so.
But this was a race with a Frenchman — not French swimming god Léon Marchand, who won his fourth gold here Friday night and was still being sung to by the fans an hour after his swim, but Florent Manaudou, a giant with a movie-star chin and pro wrestler crowd theatrics.
The 21-year-old Liendo went out like a rocket, and was out-touched by Manaudou for bronze. Manaudou finished in 21.56; Liendo, 21.58.
“That was sick,â€Â Liendo said of Manaudou’s crowd exhortations. “That was so cool. That’s what I would do if I was in my home country ... I tried not to focus too much on it but I in my head I was like, it’s the Olympics, it’s cool. Helped Florent get on the podium, for sure.â€
Liendo then recorded the second fastest time in his signature event, the 100-metre butter fly, one one-hundredth behind another Frenchman, Maxime Grousset. Canada has five swim medals here in Paris, fueled by Summer McIntosh; one more matches the six of Rio and Tokyo. Liendo and McIntosh, in the 200-metre individual medley, and Canada’s mixed relay team will try to beat that medal mark Saturday night.
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