Canada’s Kylie Masse wins Olympic bronze in women’s 200-m backstroke

Canada's Kylie Masse competes during the 100m women's backstroke final at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Tuesday, July 30, 2024. (Nathan Denette/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

It’s unwise to bet against Kylie Masse at the Olympics.

The Canadian swimmer added to her impressive Olympic haul with a bronze medal in the women’s 200-metre backstroke on Friday.

It is the fifth career Olympic medal for Masse and the 11th for Canada at Paris 2024.

After a fast start, Masse appeared to be losing grip with the leaders on the third of four laps. But she rallied in the last few strokes to overtake Phoebe Bacon, finishing four-hundredths of a second ahead of the American for bronze.

“That last 35 metres, I felt my entire body just giving every last little bit,” an emotional Masse told CBC Olympics. “That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to leave it all in the pool and just see what I can do. I’m just so happy to get on the podium.”

Australia’s Kaylee McKeown won gold in an Olympic-record time of two minutes, 3.73 seconds, .53 seconds ahead of runner-up Regan Smith of the U.S. Masse was 1.84 seconds back of the winner.

Masse finished fourth earlier in the meet in the 100-metre backstroke. She becomes the first Canadian swimmer to win a medal at three consecutive Olympics.

The 28-year-old native of LaSalle, Ont., now has two silver and three bronze medals over three Olympics.

“I think I was just in a little bit of a shock,” Masse said of her reaction after Friday’s race. “I was just like ‘oh my gosh.’ I feel like I’m still processing. I’m just so happy. I really wanted to get on the podium in the 100 and just fell short of that. It just feels nice to kind of redeem myself in a way and get on the podium.”

Masse won silver in the 200-m backstroke three years ago in Tokyo. But the University of Toronto product came fifth in the event in the world championships last year and finished that meet without an individual medal.

“Honestly, coming into the race, I was really telling myself to enjoy it and to look up and see the Canadian flags because you never know if you’ll be back again … Just wanted to soak in the moment as much as possible,” Masse said.

Meanwhile, Canada’s Josh Liendo missed the podium by just two-hundredths of a second in the men’s freestyle final.

Linedo finished fourth in 21.58 seconds, edged out for bronze by Florent Manadou of France.

Liendo finished ninth in the semifinals on Thursday and appeared to be eliminated. But after France’s Maxime Grousset scratched, Liendo grabbed the final spot in the final.

Australia’s Cameron McEvoy won gold.

Later, Liendo and fellow Canadian Ilya Kharun both qualified for Saturday’s 100-metre butterfly final.

Liendo had the third-fastest time in the semis, while Kharun was sixth.

In the final event of the day, Canada’s Summer McIntosh and Sydney Pickrem qualified for the women’s 200-metre individual medley final on Saturday.

McIntosh posted the second-fastest semifinal time, while Pickerem was fifth.

McIntosh already has won three medals in Paris.

When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.