For Local Olympian Maggie Mac Neil, bringing home three medals in her Olympic debut is still setting in.
The Londoner touched down at Toronto Person Airport Monday, greeted by her parents, and returned home to congratulations from neighbours and friends.
“I don’t think it will hit me for a while once I am home,” Mac Neil said. “Being overseas you don’t see the impact our success is having in Canada, you’re just getting snippets of it.”
The 21-year-old took home three medals, gold, silver, and bronze during her Olympic debut in Tokyo.
Mac Neil was part of the team that won silver in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay on July 24. Her teammates were Penny Oleksiak, Rebecca Smith and Kayla Sanchez.
She then won Canada’s first gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics during the women’s 100m butterfly on July 25, where she set a new Canadian swimming record at 55.59 seconds.
Finally, on July 31, Mac Neil along with Penny Oleksiak, Sydney Pickrem and Kylie Masse, won bronze in women’s 4x100m medley relay.
Headed into her first Olympics, the 21-year-old said she did not have many medal expectations.
“We have not competed that much so I was not sure how we stood to the rest of the world.”
The first few days after winning gold and silver Mac Neil said she just stared at her medals in disbelief.
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“I didn’t expect to come home with three medial, let alone one of every colour.”
After the games were postponed last year, Mac Neil said it was hard to get motivated.
“Everything changed rapidly and everything was getting cancelled at the same time, but I went into my backyard pool and did some pull-ups on my childhood play climber outside.”
Once things reopened more she went to school at the University of Michigan and came back in April to start training with her fellow Olympians in Toronto.
“We are all really close and we are all similar in age, but 11 of us came from the same program at the high performance in Toronto.”
With the pandemic not allowing friends and family to go to Tokyo, Mac Neil said she made up for it with FaceTime.
“I convinced my mom ‘you are going to get better coverage on TV’ and I FaceTimeed them a lot, more than I thought I would while I was there, so it felt like they were on the journey with me.”
As for what’s next, after bring home three medals Mac Neil is going to take a few weeks off and enjoy spending time with friends and family.
“My body does need a break, that’s for sure, and emotionally and mentally as well. Being so focused on a goal for such a long time — I guess five years — to have it finally be over is just a relief but also just to think about what we did and the incredible things we accomplished.”
Mac Neil said she hopes to spend some time off at the cottage paddle boarding and kayaking.
She says she may hit the pool a few times to cool off but does not think anyone will be challenging her to a race anytime soon.
With files from Kelly Wang
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