FUKUOKA, Japan – Summer McIntosh of Toronto earned Canada’s second swimming medal at the Word Aquatics Championships, taking bronze in the women’s 200-metre freestyle Wednesday.

Mollie O’Callaghan led Australia to a 1-2 finish, clocking 1:52.85 to break Italian Federica Pellegrini’s 14-year-old world record. Ariarne Titmus took the silver in 1:53.01 and McIntosh lowered her Canadian senior record and world junior record to 1:53.65.

“It’s always nice to get on the podium again at my second world championships,’’ said the 16-year-old McIntosh, now with five career podiums at long-course worlds. ‘’Overall, I was really happy with that race and the 200 free has always been a really fun race to go head-to-head. It was super close, so just learning from that and I’ll learn from my splits and things to work on moving forward.’’

McIntosh opened the competition Sunday with fourth in the 400 freestyle, as Titmus took her world record.

“I think there’s always things to learn and I think you learn the most when you have off races like that in the 400 free,’’ McIntosh said. ‘’I learned a lot about how I swam it, where I went wrong and also about my preparation before and where I can improve. It just gives me a lot of motivation and inspires me to push harder and even more heading into next year for Paris.’’

The 2024 Olympic Games start in exactly one year in the French capital.

Later on, Ilya Kharun of Montreal lowered his Canadian record to 1:53.82 to tie for fourth in the men’s 200 butterfly final with American Thomas Heilman.

Leon Marchand of France took the gold in 1:52.43, Krzysztof Chmielewski of Poland followed in 1:53.62 and Tomoru Honda of Japan was third at 1:53.66.

The 18-year-old Kharun was eighth at the first three splits but charged to the finish with the fastest last 50 at 29.15. He beat his previous record from Tuesday’s semi by nearly a half second.

‘’It could have been better, the finish was a bit long,’’ he said. ‘’I tried to go out smooth in the first 50 and blast the last 50. I certainly dropped a lot of time which is what I wanted but I definitely wanted a podium finish. I’ll have to get it next year (at the Olympics).’’

Canada added a sixth place in the 4×100-metre mixed medley relay clocking 3:43.72 with Kylie Masse of LaSalle, Ont., James Dergousoff of Christina Lake, B.C., Margaret Mac Neil of London, Ont., and Ruslan Gaziev of Toronto. Ingrid Wilm of Calgary swam lead-off in the preliminaries.

China took the gold in 3:38.57, Australia was second in 3:39.03 and the U.S. third in 3:40.19. Those medallist qualify for Paris 2024, while the remaining 13 spots will be decided from the fastest times between Fukuoka and the Doha 2024 World Aquatics Championships.

“It’s a really cool relay,’’ Gaziev said. ‘’I think it enhances the team chemistry, the team bond. Mixed relays are always fun. It was a good relay and I’m happy I did it with these three.’’

McIntosh, Masse and Wilm advance to finals

About an hour after her medal performance, defending world champion McIntosh qualified third for the women’s 200 butterfly final in 2:06.85. Lana Pudar of Bosnia and Herzegovina was the fastest in 2:06.60 and American Regan Smith clocked second in 2:06.83. All three were in the second semi.

‘’Doubles are definitely mentally very challenging and physically challenging, but I think it’s at the same time also really fun,’’ said McIntosh about racing twice in one session. “You have to warm down as much as possible and recover as much as possible in between, which is definitely difficult, but with all the staff around me it’s really easy to accomplish that.”

Masse and Wilm were fourth and seventh overall in the women’s 50 backstroke semis clocking 27.49 and 27.71 to advance to Thursday’s final. Masse is the defending world champion.

The top-three were Regan Smith of the U.S. in 27.10, Kaylee McKeown of Australia in 27.26 and Lauren Cox of Great Britain in 27.29.

Finlay Knox of Okotoks, Alta., ranked 13th in the men’s 200 individual medley semifinal clocking 1:58.23.

In the men’s 100 freestyle semifinal, Josh Liendo of Markham, Ont., ranked 14th in 48.22.

“It was all right,’’ he said. ‘’I’ve changed a lot of things in my freestyle this year. I think I just got caught up there at the end, but I went out for it, gave it everything I had. I’d like to be back faster than that. I just wasn’t out as fast. I have some work to do. I’ve got 50 free, 100 fly; those are big ones, so I’ve got to be focused on that.”

Javier Acevedo of Toronto was 24th in the preliminaries in 48.67.

Viewers can catch the action live via the free CBC Gem steaming service, cbcsports.ca, and the CBC Sports App for iOS and Android devices, and watch broadcast coverage on CBC TV as part of CBC Sports weekend programming throughout the competition.

CBC Sports’ Devin Heroux is in Japan poolside keeping audiences up-to-date on the latest news and posting social videos daily.

Events are being live streamed across CBC Sports digital platforms, with a live swim show hosted by Anastasia Bucsis streaming daily on CBC Gem beginning Sunday for all final events. Finals start at 7 a.m. ET each day.

Full team list: https://www.swimming.ca/en/national-teams/senior-national-teams/fukuoka-2023-world-aquatics-championships/

Schedule and results: Competition Results | AQUA Official