John Atkinson compares Canada’s Olympic swim team in Paris to a complex jigsaw puzzle requiring a deft hand to complete.
Swimming Canada’s high-performance director of a dozen years is managing his deepest Olympic team yet, with 17-year-old Summer McIntosh its centrepiece.
While the women have carried the swim team to the podium at the last two Olympic Games, the men’s side is showing medal potential in Paris.
“The men’s program is in a very different place than it was leading into Tokyo,” Atkinson said.
Canadian women won six swimming medals in Rio in 2016 and another half-dozen in Tokyo in 2021.
“The last two games, we had six medals. We’re looking towards six and beyond,” Atkinson said.
Canada’s 28-member team at the pool contains multiple medal threats swimming in more than one race.
Strategically managing talent to extract maximum medals from seven relays creates many moving parts for Atkinson and Canada’s seven coaches led by head coach Ryan Mallette.
“Sometimes you have to be comfortable with things looking chaotic because you know there is a plan behind it all,” Atkinson said.
“We are going to have some athletes that race on Day 1 and are still racing on Day 9 and all the way in between, where before you might have an athlete waiting until Day 8.
“When you have the team we have now, and qualified seven relays for the first time ever, everybody is going to be on their own very dynamic plan not only for racing, but recovery between races to sustain the nine days of that performance.”
Swimming starts Saturday at the Aquatics Centre, which is one of just two permanent sport venues built for Paris 2024 alongside Le Bourget Climbing Wall.
Toronto’s McIntosh steps onto the blocks in the women’s 400-metre freestyle a podium contender in that event and more.
Reigning 100-metre Olympic butterfly champion Maggie Mac Neil races the heats and semifinals of that event Saturday, when she could also join seven-time Olympic medallist Penny Oleksiak in the women’s 4 x 100 freestyle relay final.
Veteran backstroker Kylie Masse, who was a double silver medallist in Tokyo, eyes a return to the Olympic podium.
“I would love to go faster than I’ve ever been,” said the 28-year-old from LaSalle, Ont.
Backstroker Ingrid Wilm, butterfly specialists Josh Liendo and Ilya Kharun and individual medley swimmers Finlay Knox and Sydney Pickrem have all reached podiums at the two world championships held over the last 12 months.
“We’ve seen the success of the women. We want to get to that point,” Liendo said. “We’re not afraid to aim high. We want to be able to win medals, be in finals and be a challenge in races.”
Deploying those swimmers, and incorporating key cogs Rebecca Smith, Taylor Ruck and Mary-Sophie Harvey into relay heats and finals is part of the chess game Canadian coaches will play in Paris.
Canada will race for the first time in the mixed medley relay that made its Olympic debut in Tokyo.
An example of Canada’s juggling act is the men’s and women’s medley relay heats fall on the same Day 8 as the mixed relay, men’s 100-metre butterfly and women’s 200-metre medley finals.
“Not just with Summer, but particularly with Summer and others who have this multiple-event conundrum, we have a plan as to where they might not be needed in prelims for relays, then they’ll come in for finals,” Atkinson explained.
“There’s plans for when they get their massage therapy, there’s plans on meal and nutritional intake, that they get that immediately. There’s plans to manage all activities outside of the pool.
“Nine days of racing … it’s not always the fastest swimmer that wins at the Olympic Games. It’s the one who recovers the most day to day.”
The New York Times and German broadcaster ARD reported in April that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in the months leading up to Tokyo’s Olympic Games in 2021, when some were allowed to compete.
Chinese authorities said the drug entered the swimmers’ systems through contamination. The World Anti-Doping Agency accepting that explanation caused a war of words between WADA and U.S. anti-doping chief Travis Tygart and threats of litigation from WADA.
McIntosh, in the 400 freestyle, and Canada’s women’s 4 x 200 freestyle relay finished fourth in races in which Chinese swimmers won medals in Tokyo.
The Associated Press reports China’s swimming team in Paris retains 11 athletes who tested positive for a banned heart medication ahead of Tokyo.
“There is somewhat less trust in the system when these stories come out. We don’t know the full intricacies of what’s transpired, but every time that comes out, trust gets dented and it does take time to come back from that,” Atkinson said.
“My message to everybody has always been, control the things you can control. You can control what you do, you can control how you swim, you can control how you perform. What you can’t control is what someone else decides to do. You have to almost put that in a box to the side, focus on what you need to go and swim to your absolute best and be better at Paris than you were at our trials.”
– With files from Gregory Strong.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 25, 2024.
