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Three Olympic medallists progress

2017 FINA World Championships –

BUDAPEST, Hungary – All three of Canada’s individual Olympic medallists from Rio, Penny Oleksiak, Kylie Masse and Hilary Caldwell, will race tonight at the FINA World Championships in Budapest.

Oleksiak, a four-time Olympic medallist will double up on her races tonight, with both the 100-metre freestyle finals and the 50-m butterfly semifinals.

The 17-year-old sprinted to tenth place in this morning’s 50-m butterfly prelims, finishing in 25.87 seconds.

“I was hoping for a little bit faster but honestly I can’t complain,” said Oleksiak. “I’m such a back ender and the 50 doesn’t really give me time to get into the back end of my race, so that makes it a little bit difficult.”

Oleksiak, who trains at the High Performance Centre – Ontario is going into the 100-m freestyle final ranked sixth after Thursday’s semifinals. She became an Olympic champion in this event in Rio.

Kylie Masse and Hilary Caldwell will both race in tonight’s 200-m backstroke semifinals. Masse, who became a world champion and world record holder in the 100-m backstroke on Tuesday qualified fifth in 2:08.30.

“The 100 has always been more of my main focus, but I’ve been working on the 200 more,” said the 21-year-old from Windsor, Ont., who trains at the University of Toronto. “I felt a bit heavy in the water, hopefully after some rest I’ll be ready to go tonight. I’d be happy with a best time.”

Caldwell, a bronze medallist in this event in Rio, finished just behind Masse in 2:08.32, and is ranked sixth going into the semifinals.

“I did what I needed to do,” said Caldwell, who trains at the HPC – Victoria. “It’s a 200 back so it always feels pretty hard.”

Kierra Smith is also racing in tonight’s finals. The Kelowna, B.C., native is going into tonight’s 200-m breaststroke final after qualifying sixth on Thursday.

In the men’s 4×200-m freestyle relay, Canada’s team of Jeremy Bagshaw, Markus Thormeyer, Yuri Kisil and Carson Olafson finished 14th in 7:17.36.

Mackenzie Padington and Olivia Anderson finished 16th and 20th in the 800-m freestyle. Padington, of HPC – Victoria, swam the distance event in 8:40.68, while Anderson, of Mississauga, Ont., finished in 8.43.93.

Katerine Savard of Ponte-Rouge, Que., was 25th in the 50-m butterfly in 26.81.

In the men’s 50-m freestyle, Yuri Kisil of HPC – Vancouver and Alex Loginov of Toronto Swim Club sprinted to 25th and 47th places.

Josiah Binnema of HPC – Vancouver completed the 100-m butterfly in 53.10, good for 34th place.

The FINA World Championships run through Sunday. Finals begin at 11:30 am ET each day and will be streamed live by CBC in English at http://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/aquatics and in French on Radio-Canada Sports Facebook Live.

Full results are available at http://omegatiming.com/Competition?id=000111010AFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF&day=6