Maggie Mac Neil is possibly starting to feel déjà vu at the Pan Am Games.
The London, Ont., swimmer grabbed a fourth gold medal in four attempts, winning the women’s 50-metre freestyle on Tuesday in Santiago, Chile.
Mac Neil, who brought home five medals from last year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, clocked 24.84 seconds for her triumph Tuesday. She shared gold with Gabi Albiero (24.84), whose American teammate Catie DeLoof took bronze in 24.88.
“I’m happy that I could tie for the win. It’s still new swimming freestyle for me internationally,” Mac Neil said. “The good thing is this is obviously one of my weaker events — I really miss having that extra wall. So I’m really happy with that.”
The 23-year-old Mac Neil has matched fellow swimmer Jessica Deglau (1999) and two others for most gold medals by a Canadian at a single Pan Am Games.
She’s also even with Marianne Limpert, Joanne Malar, Ralph Hutton and Deglau for most medals (six) by a Canadian swimmer at one Pan Am competition.
The national mark of eight at a single Pan Am Games is held by Willie Weiler from 1963 in artistic gymnastics.
Mac Neil was part of the Canadian team in the women’s 4×100 medley relay on Wednesday.
She started her Pan Am Games debut teaming with Mary-Sophie Harvey, Brooklyn Douthwright and Katerine Savard to win the women’s 4×100 free relay on Saturday.
Victories and Games records followed Sunday in the 100 butterfly and 100 free on Monday.
In Tuesday’s race, Mac Neil was 53-100ths of a second shy of the Games mark of 24.31, set by Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace of the Bahamas eight years ago in Toronto.
Mac Neil geared up for these Pan Ams with a fourth-place performance on Oct. 15 in a stacked 100 butterfly field at a World Cup stop in Athens.
Ottawa’s Julie Brousseau, 17, earned her first individual gold medal on a senior national team, winning a battle to the wall in the women’s 400 individual medley. Her time of four minutes 43.76 seconds was 51-100ths faster than Lucerne Bell of the United States. Bronze went to Brazil’s Gabrielle Roncatto (4:47.92).
“It was pretty close so I really had to keep pushing to try to race,” said Brousseau. “To be able to actually do it is pretty cool especially at a meet like this.”
In the diving pool, Pamela Ware of Greenfield Park, Que., picked up her second gold medal in Santiago with victory in the women’s three-metre springboard contest.
Ware, the 30-year-old two-time Olympian, also won the one-metre event. On Tuesday, she led throughout the event to return to the top of the podium.
It was her Canadian teammate Mia Vallée, however, that faced the most pressure — a win would qualify a second Olympic spot for Canada after Ware previously clinched one at the world championships.
But it wasn’t to be for Vallée, whose sixth-place finish means she’ll have to attend another competition in February to book her ticket to Paris.
