A homegrown Olympian is adding another gold medal to her collection.
London, Ont.’s Maggie Mac Neil is walking home with the title of champion once again in the women’s 50-metre backstroke at the 2022 FINA short course world swimming championships in Melbourne, Australia Friday morning.
The 22-year-old took home the gold medal in a world-record time of 25.25 seconds, knocking the previous record she set at the 2021 championships in Abu Dhabi out of the water by .02 seconds.
“I’m ecstatic. I knew it would be hard to go a best time, but I just really wanted to see the improvements and I’m glad I did it,” Mac Neil said. “I’ve been learning so much from each swim that I’ve been doing, and I think I was able to fix all those little errors tonight.”
Mac Neil led start to finish to beat American Claire Curzan, who finished at 25.54 seconds, and Australian Mollie O’Callaghan, who finished at 25.61 seconds.
This is Mac Neil’s fourth medal of these championships, winning the 50-metre butterfly on Wednesday and contributing to bronzes in the women’s 4×100 freestyle and mixed 4×50 medley relays.
Canada has earned nine medals so far at the championships, which wrap up Sunday.
— with files from The Canadian Press.