TOKYO – The women’s 4×200-metre freestyle relay team swam a Canadian record time but just missed the podium at the Tokyo Olympics.

The team of Summer McIntosh, Rebecca Smith, Kayla Sanchez and Penny Oleksiak, who all train at the High Performance Centre – Ontario, finished fourth in seven minutes, 43.77 seconds Thursday morning (Wednesday night in Canada). That broke the old mark of 7:44.35 Sanchez, Taylor Ruck, Emily Overholt and Oleksiak swam finishing third at the 2019 world championships.

“We’re definitely disappointed we missed the podium,” said Oleksiak, 21, who was denied a chance to win her seventh career Olympic medal and become the most decorated Canadian Olympian of all time. “We knew it was going to be a tough race.

“The other three teams just came out of nowhere. They were really fast. We all swam the best we could. That’s all you can ask for. You can’t be disappointed with a Canadian record.”

China won in a world-record time of 7:40.33. The U.S. got a great swim from Katie Ledecky to overtake Australia and grab silver in 7:40.73. The Australians were third in 7:41.29.

McIntosh, Smith and Sanchez are all swimming in their first Olympics.

The 14-year-old McIntosh swam a personal best time of 1:55.74 to put Canada third after the opening leg.

“I just wanted to touch the wall as fast as possible and get my job done to set the pace for the other girls,” said the Toronto native.

Smith went into the finals after swimming a personal best relay split of 1:55.99 in the preliminaries.

“I just wanted to swim the best I could for these girls,” said the 21-year-old from Red Deer, Alta. “I gave it all I could. I can’t ask for that much more.”

Sanchez, the 20-year-old from Toronto, swam a personal best to qualify for the 100-m freestyle semifinals but dropped out to concentrate on the relay.  The goal heading into the race was the equal or better the bronze medal the 4×200-m freestyle team won at the Rio 2016 Olympics.

“I guess all of us are maybe a little low because we didn’t get a medal,” she said. “That’s really cool to have that culture.

“I’m surrounded by really high-class girls. You can always be happy with what you do and make changes for the next swim.”

The team of Katerine Savard (CAMO/Pont-Rouge, Que), Smith, Mary-Sophie Harvey (CAMO/Trois-Rivières, Que.) and Sydney Pickrem (HPC – Ontario/Halifax) finished fourth overall in the preliminaries in 7:51.52.

It was a busy night for Oleksiak who earlier in the session qualified for the 100-metre freestyle final. She swam a season-best time of 52.86 seconds for the fifth-best time. Australia’s Emma McKeon led all swimmers in 52.32 seconds.

Oleksiak can also add to her medal total in the two medley relays.

In other events, Markus Thormeyer (HPC – Vancouver/Delta, B.C.) failed to advance to the final of the 200-m backstroke after finishing eighth in his semifinal heat in 1:59.36.

“The Olympics is hard,” said Thormeyer. “I did my best but today it wasn’t there.

“I felt like I started on a half tank of gas. I tried to keep to my race strategy but the time didn’t come through. That wasn’t a great time but I can’t be mad. That was an Olympic semifinal. I know I’m better than that. Sometimes it’s not the day. I did all I could.”

Kelsey Wog (University of Manitoba Bisons/Winnipeg) failed to advance to the final of the 200-m breaststroke after being disqualified in her semifinal heat. She had finished eighth in a time of 2:25.99.

Wog was sixth in the event at the 2019 world championships.

Finlay Knox (HPC – Ontario/Okotoks, Alta.) missed a berth in the men’s 200-m individual medley semifinal by one spot placing 17th overall in 1:58.29.

Full schedule and results: https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/olympic-games/en/results/swimming/olympic-schedule-and-results-date=2021-07-24.htm