Canadian women win bronze medal in 4×200-metre freestyle relay at Rio Olympics

RIO DE JANEIRO – The Canadian women’s 4×200-metre freestyle relay team won bronze at the Rio Olympics on Wednesday night.

Katerine Savard of Pont-Rouge, Que., B.C.-born Taylor Ruck of Scottsdale, Ariz., and Brittany MacLean and Penny Oleksiak, both of Toronto, finished the race in seven minutes 45.39 seconds.

The United States won gold in 7:43.03, followed by Australia in 7:44.87.

It’s Canada’s sixth medal of the Games and fourth in swimming.

Canada opened its medal haul with bronze in the 4×100 relay. Oleksiak — who along with Ruck were on the 4×100 medal winning foursome — added a silver in the 100 butterfly and Kylie Masse won bronze in 100 backstroke.

The Canadian team made two changes from Wednesday morning’s qualifying race for evening relay.

Savard and Ruck were part of the earlier qualifying team for the race but Emily Overholt of West Vancouver, B.C., and Kennedy Goss of Toronto made up the other two. They qualified sixth with a time of 7:51.99 seconds.

Canada was fourth in the event at the 2012 London Games.