Canadian record holders Masse, Liendo lead swimming team into Olympic semifinals

Canadian record holder Kylie Masse was never pressured in her preliminary swim and cruised to the semifinals of the women’s Olympic 200-metre backstroke later Thursday.

Masse, who captured a silver medal in the event at the Tokyo Games three years ago, touched the wall in two minutes 8.54 seconds to win her heat by more than one second over Great Britain’s Honey Osrin (2:09.57) at La Defense Arena in Nanterre, France.

“A nice smooth swim,” is how CBC Sports analyst Byron MacDonald described the effort by Masse, who will race at 3:19 p.m. ET for a chance to become the sixth Canadian woman to medal at the Olympics in the event.

“I’m pleased,” Masse added of her heat race. “A 200 is never easy in the morning. I think the pain is always there, but I wanted to stay as controlled as possible. It’s a tight group in this field so I just wanted to feel my stroke a little.

“[The] nature of our sport is nothing is guaranteed and you have to keep pushing and going to the very last moment.”

The four-time Olympic medallist was 31-100ths of a second from securing a podium finish in the women’s 100 back on Tuesday.

“It’s tough getting back up,” said MacDonald. “She was disappointed [in the 100 result]. A good swim but she’s so used to being on the [medal] podium that she has to re-focus and get another race under her belt. That’s what she did here. She took care of business.”

Competing at her third Olympics, Masse also won silver in the 100 in Tokyo and bronze in the 100 medley relay.

Rathwell to miss semis in 1st Olympics

Her nine world championship medals is tied with Penny Oleksiak for most among Canadians.

Ottawa-born Regan Rathwell went 2:12.21 in the 200 back heat Thursday in her first Olympic race but didn’t advance, finishing 22nd.

Rathwell, who grew up 40 kilometres southwest of Ottawa in Ashton, Ont., set a 2:09.38 personal best in May when she was second to Masse at Canadian trials in Toronto.

Rathwell was coming off a concussion and four surgeries over 14 months to repair both shoulders and a mass removal from her neck in December 2023.

“She’s incredible. I was fortunate enough to train with her in 2022, I think, and she has such a great work ethic,” Masse said. “She’s gone through so much adversity and it’s incredible to see her come out on the other side of that.

“It’s never easy to face that and have to get back to where you once were or be far away from your goals. It’s an incredible testament to her character and what she wants to achieve.”

Masse is one of four captains of the Canadian swim team in Paris along with Josh Liendo, who snuck into the men’s 50 freestyle semifinals Thursday, finishing 15th of 16 qualifiers for the 2:46 p.m. competition.

The Toronto native picked up the pace at the halfway mark and stopped the clock in 21.92 seconds for third in his heat behind winner Benjamin Proud of Great Britain (21.70). Australia’s Cameron McEvoy (21.32) was the top qualifier.

Liendo aims to be sharper in 50m freestyle

Liendo, 21, told Devin Heroux of CBC Sports he’ll need to “clean some stuff up” and be sharp in the semifinals at 2:46 p.m.

“Try to minimize those mistakes and give it my best shot,” he added.

On Saturday, Liendo was a member of the Canadian team that placed sixth in the 4×100 freestyle relay.

In the 200 individual medley, Finlay Knox of Okotoks, Alta., placed 13th for the 16-man semifinals in 1:58.97, 1.49 seconds behind top qualifier Daya Seito of Japan.

Three years ago, Knox missed advancing to the semifinals by 14-100ths of a second while swimming with a broken scaphoid bone on the thumb side of his wrist.

“The morning [races] are always hard. They hurt. I didn’t let up and pushed it,” said Knox. In February, he became the first Canadian man in 17 years to win swimming gold at the world championships, clocking a national record 1:56.64.

Meanwhile, Canada is also through to the women’s 4×200 free relay final at 4:03 p.m.

Emma O’Croinin (Edmonton), Ella Jansen (Burlington, Ont.), Julie Brousseau (Ottawa) and Mary-Sophie Harvey (Trois-Rivieres, Que.) qualified sixth of eight teams in 7:53.03.

Australia was tops in 7:45.63, followed by Hungary (7:52.25) and China (7:52.36).