Tokyo Olympics: Asian Canadians win medals for their country's swimming team

Canada’s 400 free relay silver medallists (from left) Penny Oleksiak, Rebecca Smith, Maggie MacNeil and Kayla Sanchez

A pair of Asian Canadians helped win Canada's first swimming medal earlier this week.  The four-member team won the silver medal in the 4x100 freestyle relay.

Filipino Canadian Kayla Sanchez, 20, swam the leadoff leg of the race. Chinese Canadian Margaret MadNeil swam the next leg. They were joined by Rebecca Smith and Olympic medal winner Penny Oleksiak, who anchored the relay team.

Sanchez also swam in the 400m medley, swimming the freestyle leg. The Candians came in fourth in the finals.

Sanchez, the Canadian swimming star started swimming competitively at a young age after her Filipino family immigrated to Canada from Singapore, where she was born. After the Olympics, Sanchez will join the Thunderbirds of the University of British Columbia.

Margaret MacNeil wins gold for Canada.

The next day, on Monday, MacNeil won the gold medal for the 100 meter butterfly beating out international stars China’s Zhang Yufei (55.64) with Australia’s “medal machine” Emma McKeon.

MacNeil, 21, was born in China but was adopted as an infant by an Ontario family. She is a swimming star at the University of Michigan.

“It’s crazy. I’m trying to process what happened (Sunday) with the relay, because that was so incredible,” said MacNeil.

“And I still don’t think I’ve realized the whole world champion thing, so this will take a while to get used to.”

•