Canadian-Chinese swimmer Maggie MacNeil smashes backstroke world record to make it 4 world championship gold medals
- The 21-year-old is ‘proud, honoured and relieved’ after sealing 100m butterfly gold in Abu Dhabi
- ‘Never in a million years did I think my first world record would be in a backstroke event’ writes MacNeil
Maggie MacNeil closed a perfect year by completing the fabled butterfly “quadfecta” or “fourfecta” at the FINA short-course world championships, casually smashing the backstroke world record the day before.
Adding another gold in her preferred 100m butterfly in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, the 21-year-old has now been crowned short-course world champion, long-course Olympic champion, short-course (yards) NCAA champion this year, and won the long-course world title in 2019.
It was MacNeil’s fourth gold of the week having won the first two with the Canadian team in the 4x100m freestyle relay and mixed 4x50m medley relay. This was MacNeil’s first short-course world championships, with her swims securing a position at the top of the meet’s FINA points tally.
“So proud, honoured and relieved to cap my 2021 year with this quadfecta in my baby the 100 fly,” MacNeil wrote on Instagram, shouting out teammate Kylie Masse, whose silver medal-earning swim was just .02 seconds off the previous world record.