By Canadian Press

Canadian women swim to bronze in freestyle relay at world championships

Jul 25, 2019 | 8:29 AM

GWANGJU, Korea, Republic Of — The Canadian women’s 4×200-metre freestyle relay team captured a bronze medal on Thursday at the world aquatics championships.

Kayla Sanchez of Scarborough, Ont., Taylor Ruck of Kelowna, B.C., Emily Overholt of West Vancouver and Penny Oleksiak of Toronto set a Canadian record with a time of 7 minutes 44.35 seconds.

Australia won gold and the United States took silver.

It was the fifth swimming medal for Canada at the worlds. Sanchez, Ruck and Oleksiak also were part of a bronze medal-winning 4×100 metre freestyle relay team.

For Oleksiak, it was her fourth career world medal, making her the most decorated Canadian women’s swimmer in history at the event.

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The Americans got ailing Katie Ledecky back. But they just couldn’t overcome a world record by the Australians.

Ledecky returned after two days out of the pool while being sick to swim in  relay. She rallied the U.S. to the lead on her second leg, but it wasn’t enough to defend the title from 2017.

Australia won in 7:41.50.

Ariarne Titmus, Madison Wilson, Brianna Throssell and Emma McKeon took down the old mark of 7:42.08 set by China at the 2009 worlds in Rome during the height of the rubber suit era.

The Americans took silver in 7:41.87.

Meanwhile, Markus Thormeyer of Tsawwassen, B.C., set a Canadian record with a time of 1:56.96 in the men’s 200-metre backstroke semifinals to earn a spot in the final. He had the fifth fastest time overall.

Sydney Pickrem of Halifax and Kelsey Wog of Winnipeg qualified for the women’s 200-metre breaststroke final by finishing third and seventh, respectively, in the semis.

Ruck also moved on to the women’s 100-metre freestyle final by placing fourth in the semis.

— with files from the Associated Press

The Canadian Press