Canada's Summer McIntosh, right, is consoled by teammate Kylie Masse following the women's 4 X 100-metre medley relay swimming final in Nanterre, France on Aug. 4.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Summer McIntosh has outraced almost every other swimmer this week, but that comes at a price. You’d have to think fatigue would eventually catch up to her, even if her competitors couldn’t.
On Sunday, Canada’s women’s 4x100-metre medley-relay team went looking for one last medal, with McIntosh swimming the anchor leg. It was her 13th race in the past nine days, at an Olympics where she had already won three gold medals and a silver, becoming the first Canadian to do so.
And after Canada placed fourth, finishing just off the podium in what has been a record-setting Olympics at the pool, McIntosh admitted that maybe she was a little tired.
“I mean, yeah, of course you’re going to get tired, nine days of Olympic racing,” McIntosh said.
But she refused to use her unusually heavy workload as an excuse.
“At the same time, I’ve trained years and years and simulated this kind of pain and exhaustion, way greater than this right now. So I really just try to trust my training and trust that I put in all the work I can to prepare for moments like this.”
McIntosh said she wouldn’t be the only swimmer feeling the exhaustion of a long meet.
“Going into today I just tried to leave everything I had left in the pool. I mean, no one’s feeling fresh Day 9,” she said. “So everyone’s kind of in the same boat there. I just tried my best for Canada.”
The fourth-place finish means Canada uncharacteristically leaves the Paris Olympics without a medal in the relays, where it has garnered two medals at each of the past two Summer Games.
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The United States won gold in a world-record time of 3 minutes 49.63 seconds, Australia claimed silver in 3:53.11, and China took bronze in 3:53.23.
With Kylie Masse swimming backstroke in the final, Sophie Angus swimming breaststroke, Maggie Mac Neil on butterfly, and McIntosh doing the freestyle leg, Canada touched the wall less than seven-tenths of a second off the podium, at 3:53.91.
“Definitely hard, I mean, this was our best shot to get on that podium and we were super close,” Mac Neil said afterward. “It’s been a long week and that’s what we train for, but I guess we’re just a little bit short today. But I’m so proud of being with these girls here and we put up a good fight today.”
Mac Neil, swimming in what she expects is her last Olympics, pulled Canada into second place in her leg, but she said they knew they were going to get a strong challenge from the other top teams, including China, on the final 100 metres.
“We knew the Chinese had a good anchor leg. So we were just waiting to see what they could do and we were just a little bit short.”
The Canadian swimmers finish with eight medals, all from individual races, exceeding the six the program brought home from each of the past two Olympics.
Had the women’s relay made the podium Sunday, it would have been one of Canada’s most historic medals yet.
With four medals heading in, McIntosh, 17, was looking to tie the record for the most won by a Canadian at an Olympics. That record belongs to speed skater Cindy Klassen, who won five at the 2006 Winter Games.
And Penny Oleksiak, 24, who swam in the preliminary heat that pushed Canada into Sunday’s final, was hoping to increase her historic count. She went into Paris as Canada’s most-decorated Olympian with seven medals. A podium Sunday would have increased that number to eight.
Angus said the race was intense right from the start.
“The race goes by so quickly, there’s not a lot of time to think where everyone else is, and you just have to try and do your part for the rest of the team,” Angus said.
Masse said the team felt like they had a good shot at the podium. “We know it’s a competitive field and we knew it was going to be fast,” Masse said.
Canada’s men’s relay team entered Sunday having qualified for the final of the 4x100-metre medley with the seventh-fastest time, giving them Lane 1. An outside lane, and an outside shot.
It was there, three years ago at the Tokyo Olympics, that the men’s relay team came from behind and almost pulled off a remarkable upset, placing fourth in the 4x100 freestyle.
In Paris, they were doing their best to conjure the ghosts of that race.
But in the end, the powerhouse teams from China, the United States and France were too fast.
With Blake Tierney swimming backstroke, Finlay Knox swimming breaststroke, Ilya Kharun butterfly, and Josh Liendo the freestyle leg, the men’s squad finished fifth.
China won gold in 3:27.46, the United States claimed silver in 3:28.01, and France took bronze in 3:28.38.
The men went into the medley relay riding a wave of momentum from their best performance at the Olympics in more than a decade, racking up three individual medals.
That included a double podium in the 100-metre butterfly on Saturday, with a silver from Liendo and a bronze from Kharun. It was the first time two Canadian men had stood on the same podium in Olympic swimming. A few days before that, Kharun won bronze in the 200-metre butterfly.
It was the best performance since the 2012 London Olympics, when Canada’s men won two medals. Ryan Cochrane claimed a silver in the 1,500-metre freestyle that year, and Brent Hayden swam to a bronze in the 100-metre freestyle.
The men’s team went into Paris looking to make a breakthrough, having watched the women’s program win 12 medals over the past two Olympics.
Liendo, 21, an NCAA champion with the University of Florida who has been hailed as the future of Canadian men’s swimming, said the medals in Paris are a sign that brighter days are ahead.
“We made a big statement there,” Liendo said.
McIntosh echoed Liendo’s thoughts.
“I was super pumped to see two Canadian men on the podium,” McIntosh said. “It’s been a while. They’re just getting started.”