{"id":21437,"date":"2025-07-24T21:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T21:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/21437\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T21:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T21:17:08","slug":"canadas-backstroke-big-gamer-kylie-masse-focused-on-worlds-not-2028-l-a-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/21437\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s backstroke big-gamer Kylie Masse focused on worlds, not 2028 L.A. Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada’s Kylie Masse, of Lasalle, Ont., competes during the 100m women’s backstroke final at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Tuesday, July 30, 2024.Nathan Denette\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The best women\u2019s backstroker Canada has ever produced refuses to look deep into the future.<\/p>\n

Five-time Olympic medallist Kylie Masse of LaSalle, Ont., has her mind on the world swimming championship starting Saturday in Singapore, and not on Los Angeles in 2028.<\/p>\n

The 50-metre backstroke added to the Olympic swim program in 2028 seems a boon for one of the best in the world at it, but the 29-year-old has yet to decide if she\u2019ll compete in her fourth Olympic Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am still in a position where I\u2019m just kind of taking it moment by moment and figuring it out, and I\u2019m not really putting any pressure on myself to commit to that at this point,\u201d Masse said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am excited to see what I can do in it this year, but as far as 2028, I\u2019m just kind of taking it day by day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 50 backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly have long been staples of world championships, but those sprints will make their Olympic debuts in L.A.<\/p>\n

Masse won a world championship in the 50 backstroke in 2022. She was first at the turn of the 100 in Tokyo in 2021 en route to an Olympic silver medal. <\/p>\n

Masse and American Regan Smith were tied for first at the half of last year\u2019s 100 in Paris, where Masse settled for fourth. <\/p>\n

She won bronze in the 200 backstroke, however, and became the first Canadian swimmer to earn a medal in three consecutive Olympic Games. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

In Paris last year, Masse became the first Canadian swimmer to win a medal in three Olympic games. The 29-year-old is contemplating taking part in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.Clodagh Kilcoyne\/Reuters<\/p>\n

The athlete able to combine the most power and the best technique wins the 50 metres, Masse said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it happens so fast, there\u2019s no room for error,\u201d she explained. <\/p>\n

After the longest post-Olympic break of her career \u2014 during which she took time to reflect \u2014 Masse eased back into the water in October. Now, she heads to her fifth long-course world championship, where she\u2019s already collected nine medals, including three gold.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent many days contemplating what I wanted to do and if I wanted to keep swimming or how much I wanted to keep swimming,\u201d Masse said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of realized I still love swimming and I wanted to keep swimming, not to the same capacity as I was swimming before, but I still wanted to be in the water and be competitive. I had a good (Canadian) trials and I was pleasantly surprised and happy with that, and I\u2019m really looking forward to getting to Singapore and just being able to represent Canada again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Masse is the veteran of Canada\u2019s 28-swimmer squad that boasts 18-year-old phenom Summer McIntosh, who is poised to make more history. <\/p>\n

The Toronto teen followed up her triple-gold, four-medal performance in Paris by setting three world records at June\u2019s trials in Victoria \u2014 in the 200 and 400 individual medleys, and the 400 freestyle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been incredible to watch her grow and to have trained with her when she was 14, just kind of coming onto the scene,\u201d Masse said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s super-exciting for our whole team and for the country, and for the swimming world in general, to just have someone of that calibre continuing to push the boundaries of history.\u201d<\/p>\n

McIntosh will also race the 200 butterfly and 800 freestyle in Singapore, with a highly-anticipated showdown with American star Katie Ledecky in the 800 free Aug. 2. <\/p>\n

McIntosh\u2019s potential participation in relays could add to another medal haul. Her ambitious program gets underway with Saturday\u2019s 400 freestyle heats followed by Sunday\u2019s final.<\/p>\n

Finlay Knox of Okotoks, Alta., is the reigning men\u2019s 200 individual medley world champion after claiming the title in 2024 in Doha, Qatar. <\/p>\n

Toronto\u2019s Joshua Liendo and Montreal\u2019s Ilya Kharun, who took Olympic silver and bronze, respectively, in the 100 butterfly, are contenders in that distance, plus the 50 fly, which is also now part of L.A.\u2019s Games.<\/p>\n

Singapore offers a prize money purse of US$3.1-million for pool and open-water swimmers, plus a US$30,000 bonus to swimmers who break world records.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of our strategic plan is that Swimming Canada aspires to be a top-six swimming nation,\u201d Swimming Canada high-performance director John Atkinson said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the program has developed to the point where you have to say that we would target being the top four nations on the medal table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s team will be minus Penny Oleksiak, who won the women\u2019s 100 and 50 freestyle at trials. She withdrew from the world championship because of a \u201cwhereabouts\u201d issue under anti-doping rules. <\/p>\n

The World Anti-Doping Code (WADA) defines a whereabouts failure as any combination of three missed tests or filing failures in a 12-month period, which the International Testing Agency stated Oleksiak did between October 2024 and June 2025.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s accepted a provisional suspension for what Swimming Canada called an \u201cadministrative mistake\u201d in not keeping her whereabouts information up to date.<\/p>\n

Even with closer McIntosh and veteran Marie-Sophie Harvey, Oleksiak\u2019s absence makes Canada less deep in freestyle relay experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a loss. I feel for the athlete as a person having made the decision to withdraw before going over there, a hard decision for any athlete to take, but (she) did it in the interests of the team,\u201d Atkinson said. \u201cHer voluntary withdrawal, putting the team first, is all very admirable.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow the team also has to look ahead and say, \u2019We\u2019re the athletes that are here,\u2019 and it gives opportunities to other athletes on the team to say, \u2019What can you all do, how can you step up and get us through the prelims and race in the finals?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Canada’s Kylie Masse, of Lasalle, Ont., competes during the 100m women’s backstroke final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-21437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}