Canadian Press/Frank Gunn
The first night of the Bell-sponsored Olympic and Paralympic Swimming Trials is scheduled, with several world champions booking spots on Team Canada for Paris 2024.
Naturally, Summer McIntosh qualified to be named to the Olympic team for the second time. The 17-year-old touched the wall in the women's 400m freestyle with a time of 3:59.06, her fastest time in the world this year, falling short of her Olympic qualifying time. This was about three seconds slower than when she swam at her trials last year, which set her world record in this event. This world record was later broken at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, with McIntosh finishing fourth, just shy of her podium.
The 400 meter freestyle was McIntosh's first event in the Olympics. At 14 years old, she was the youngest member of Team Canada to finish fourth at Tokyo 2020. The following year, she won a silver medal at the 2022 World Aquatics Championships.
This was the first of seven events in which McIntosh is expected to participate in the Olympic Trials. Ahead of her are the 200m freestyle (Tuesday), 100m backstroke (Wednesday), 400m IM (Thursday), 100m freestyle (Friday), 200m butterfly (Saturday) and 200m IM (Sunday). Remaining.
McIntosh became the only Canadian swimmer to achieve an Olympic qualifying time in the women's 400m freestyle. Julie Boursault, who represented Canada at the 2023 Pan Am Games in Santiago, fell just two-tenths of a second short of the 4:07.90 required to qualify for the 2024 Paris Games.
Maggie McNeil gets a chance to defend her Olympic title in the 100m butterfly. She won the trials in 56.61 seconds, more than a second faster than her Olympic qualifying time. She will compete at the 2024 Paris Games alongside Mary-Sophie Harvey, who qualified for her first individual Olympic event by finishing second in 57.31 seconds. She raced in a hotly contested 4x200m freestyle relay in her Tokyo 2020 Olympic debut. Rebecca Smith, who placed third at the trials, was also faster than her Olympic qualifying time, but a maximum of two swimmers per country can compete in each event.
McNeil has been one of the world's best athletes in the 100m butterfly since winning gold on her debut at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships, and two years later she became Olympic champion in the event. She withdrew from competing in her individual event at the 2022 World Championships, but returned to win a silver medal in the 100m butterfly at the 2023 World Championships. Mac Neal is also entered in the 100m freestyle at the trials.
The final event of the night was the men's 100m breaststroke. Finlay-Knox, who became world champion in the 200m individual medley in February, finished first but wasn't fast enough to qualify for the Olympics in the breaststroke. However, Canada qualified for the men's 4x100m medley relay, which requires breaststrokers.
The Olympic and Paralympic Swimming Trials, presented by Bell, will run through Sunday at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Center. Qualifying heats begin each day at 9:30 a.m. ET, with final sessions beginning each night at 6 p.m. It all leads up to the official announcement of Team Canada's Paris 2024 swim team on Sunday night.
All competition sessions will be streamed live on CBC Sports digital platforms (CBC Gem, cbcsports.ca and the CBC Sports app). CBC TV also has nightly highlight shows.
