Canada’s backstroke big-gamer Kylie Masse centered on aquatics worlds, not 2028 Olympics

The finest ladies’s backstroker Canada has ever produced refuses to look deep into the long run.

Five-time Olympic medallist Kylie Masse of LaSalle, Ont., has her thoughts on the world swimming championship beginning Saturday in Singapore, and never on Los Angeles in 2028.

The 50-metre backstroke added to the Olympic swim program in 2028 appears a boon for among the finest on this planet at it, however the 29-year-old has but to determine if she’ll compete in her fourth Olympic Games.

“I am still in a position where I’m just kind of taking it moment by moment and figuring it out, and I’m not really putting any pressure on myself to commit to that at this point,” Masse stated.

“I am excited to see what I can do in it this year, but as far as 2028, I’m just kind of taking it day by day.”

The 50 backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly have lengthy been staples of world championships, however these sprints will make their Olympic debuts in L.A.

Masse gained a world championship within the 50 backstroke in 2022. She was first on the flip of the 100 in Tokyo in 2021 en path to an Olympic silver medal.

The Canadian and American Regan Smith had been tied for first on the half of final 12 months’s 100 in Paris, the place Masse settled for fourth.

She gained bronze within the 200 backstroke, nonetheless, and have become the primary Canadian swimmer to earn a medal in three consecutive Olympic Games.

The athlete capable of mix essentially the most energy and the very best method wins the 50 metres, Masse stated.

“Because it happens so fast, there’s no room for error,” she defined.

WATCH | Masse earns 50m backstroke bronze at short-course championships:

fifth long-course worlds look

After the longest post-Olympic break of her profession, throughout which she took time to replicate, Masse eased again into the water in October. Now, she heads to her fifth long-course world championship, the place she’s already collected 9 medals, together with three gold.”

“I spent many days considering what I needed to do and if I needed to maintain swimming or how a lot I needed to maintain swimming,” Masse said.

‘I 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’m really looking forward to getting to Singapore and just being able to represent Canada again.”

Masse is the veteran of Canada’s 28-swimmer squad that boasts 18-year-old phenom Summer McIntosh, who’s poised to make extra historical past.

The Toronto teen adopted up her triple-gold, four-medal efficiency in Paris by setting three world information at June’s trials in Victoria, within the 200 and 400 particular person medleys, and the 400 freestyle.

WATCH | Masse swimming ‘for me, for enjoyable and the game I like’ in 2025:

McIntosh, Ledecky sq. off Aug. 2

“It’s been incredible to watch her grow and to have trained with her when she was 14, just kind of coming onto the scene,” Masse stated.

“It’s 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.”

McIntosh will even race the 200 butterfly and 800 freestyle in Singapore, with a extremely anticipated showdown with American star Katie Ledecky within the 800 free Aug. 2.

McIntosh’s potential participation in relays might add to a different medal haul. Her formidable program will get underway with Saturday’s 400 freestyle heats adopted by Sunday’s last.

Finlay Knox of Okotoks, Alta., is the reigning males’s 200 particular person medley world champion after claiming the title in 2024 in Doha, Qatar.

WATCH | A take a look at McIntosh’s lengthy course championships medal historical past:

Prize cash purse of $3.1M US

Toronto’s Joshua Liendo and Montreal’s Ilya Kharun, who took Olympic silver and bronze, respectively, within the 100 butterfly, are contenders in that distance, plus the 50 fly, which can also be now a part of L.A.’s Games.

Singapore affords a prize cash purse of $3.1 million US for pool and open-water swimmers, plus a $30,000 bonus to swimmers who break world information.

“Part of our strategic plan is that Swimming Canada aspires to be a top-six swimming nation,” Swimming Canada high-performance director John Atkinson stated.

“I 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.”

WATCH | Kharun outdoes personal Canadian file in males’s 50m butterfly:

Oleksiak serving suspension

Canada’s crew can be minus Penny Oleksiak, who gained the ladies’s 100 and 50 freestyle at trials. She withdrew from the world championship due to a “whereabouts” subject beneath anti-doping guidelines.

The World Anti-Doping Code (WADA) defines a whereabouts failure as any mixture of three missed checks or submitting failures in a 12-month interval, which the International Testing Agency said Oleksiak did between October 2024 and June 2025.

She’s accepted a provisional suspension for what Swimming Canada referred to as an “administrative mistake” in not protecting her whereabouts info updated.

Even with nearer McIntosh and veteran Marie-Sophie Harvey, Oleksiak’s absence makes Canada much less deep in freestyle relay expertise.

“It’s 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,” Atkinson stated. “Her voluntary withdrawal, putting the team first, is all very admirable.

“Now the crew additionally has to look forward and say ‘we are the athletes which are right here’ and it provides alternatives to different athletes on the crew to say ‘what are you able to all do, how are you going to step up and get us via the prelims and race within the finals?”‘