Maggie Mac Neil of London, Ontario is Canada’s first gold medalist from the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. On Sunday evening in Canada and Monday morning in Japan, Mac Neil posted a winning time of 55.59 seconds to place first in the women’s 100 metre butterfly swimming competition.
Mac Neil reached the podium by 0.14 seconds over Torri Huske of the United States, who had a fourth place time of 55.73 seconds. Yufei Zhang of China won the silver medal with a time of 55.64 seconds. Emma McKeon of Australia won the bronze medal with a time of 55.72 seconds.
This was Mac Neil’s second medal of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021. She previously won the silver medal in the women’s 4×100 metre freestyle relay alongside Penny Oleksiak of Toronto, Ontario, Taylor Ruck of Kelowna, British Columbia and Rebecca Smith of Red Deer, Alberta earlier at the Olympic Games.
To put everything into perspective, we are in the golden age of Canadian swimming history. Never has Canada been so deep when it comes to female swimming. Canada has won two medals in women’s swimming at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo so far. That was after six medals Canada won at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and eight medals at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju, South Korea.
Canada now has three medals at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. In addition to the relay silver, the other medal Canada won was a silver in diving.
