PARIS:
Canadian teenager Summer McIntosh claimed her second gold medal of the Paris Olympics on Thursday as she fended off a strong field in the women’s 200 metres butterfly final.
The 17-year-old touched the wall in an Olympic record time of two minutes 3.03 seconds at La Defense Arena, 0.81 seconds ahead of American silver medallist Regan Smith.
China’s Zhang Yufei took the bronze.
It was McIntosh’s third medal of the Paris Games, having taken a dominant 400 metres individual medley gold on day three of the meet and silver in the 400m freestyle on day one.
The butterfly win also made McIntosh the first Canadian swimmer ever to claim multiple Olympic golds.
It was a second consecutive clinical swim from McIntosh, who led from the start first fighting off Zhang over the first 100 and then resisting a challenge from Smith as the Chinese swimmer’s threat faded.
The first final of the night came with a mix of excitement and skepticism with the China swim team and their “Butterfly Queen” Zhang again under the doping microscope.
A doping storm has followed China to Paris after the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD reported in April that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for a banned heart medication but were allowed to swim at the Tokyo Games.
Zhang was among those swimmers named in the report and allowed to compete in Tokyo where she won the 200m butterfly.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has not named any of the swimmers.
China said the athletes were victims of contamination from a hotel kitchen, and an independent review backed the World Anti-Doping Agency’s handling of the case.
China was then plunged back into the spotlight on Tuesday after the New York Times reported that two more swimmers in 2022 had tested positive for a banned steroid but had provisional suspensions lifted when the results were also blamed on contaminated food.
China’s anti-doping agency (CHINADA) responded to that report accusing the New York Times of politicising doping issues and said the publication was trying to “affect the psychology” of Chinese athletes at the Paris Olympics.
