More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Kylie Masse set the pace in a lightning-fast women's backstroke final to emerge with an Olympic silver medal.
The 25-year-old from LaSalle, Ont., led at the halfway turn in the 100-metre backstroke with the fastest first length of her life.
Australia's Kaylee McKeown caught Masse at the wall to take gold by just over two tenths of a second.
Both women went under the Olympic record set in the previous day's semifinals by bronze medallist Regan Smith of the U.S.
"I knew it was an incredibly challenging and talented field of backstrokers that have been swimming crazy-fast this whole year, so I knew it was going to be a battle," Masse said.
"I'm proud of myself to get on the podium tonight."
Her medal was the third in as many days for the Canadian women's swim team following Maggie Mac Neil's gold in the 100-metre butterfly Monday and a freestyle relay silver Sunday.
Toronto's Penny Oleksiak and Sydney Pickrem of Clearwater, Fla., qualified for the 200-metre freestyle and 200-metre individual medley finals respectively Tuesday. They'll race Wednesday morning local time (Tuesday evening in Canada).
McKeown's winning time was two hundredths of a second off her world record of 57.47 seconds. Masse's 57.72 was two hundredths back of her career-best in June's Olympic trials.
Masse (pronounced Moss) is a double world champion in 100 backstroke, having claimed titles in 2019 in Gwangju, South Korea, and 2017 in Budapest.
The global COVID-19 pandemic upended Masse's swimming life for over a year leading into Tokyo, so the Canadian was philosophical about missing out on gold.
"It would have been incredible to have gotten gold. I would have absolutely loved that," Masse said. ""I went the second-fastest time that I've ever gone and I have to be happy with that. I'm proud of that in an Olympic final.
"After such a crazy year, I don't think you can be too hard on yourself."
Masse's home pool is at the University of Toronto, where she trains under coaches Linda Kiefer and Bryon MacDonald.
With that pool closed for much of the COVID-19 pandemic, she relocated to Toronto's Pan Am Sports Centre last year to join a training group overseen by Ben Titley.
When the first wave of the pandemic shut down all pools for weeks in the spring of 2020, Masse got into a harness and tethered herself to a fence so she could swim in place in her parents' backyard pool.
"Everyone's faced challenges this year," Masse said. "Some more than others. I don't want to ever use that as an excuse. I did everything I possibly could."
Masse felt she was able to compensate for a lack of races over the last year with an unprecedented volume of training.
"That helped me go 57 (seconds) early in the year and helped me go 57 now," she said. "That's the fastest I've been in five years.
"I know that the training that I've done this last year, even (with) all of the obstacles, has been successful and some of the best training I've had in my life."
Masse tied for Olympic bronze with China's Fu Yuanhui in Rio in 2016.
The only other women in the world to win multiple career medals in 100 backstroke are American Natalie Coughlin, Krisztina Egerszegi of Hungary and Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe.
Toronto's Summer McIntosh, the youngest athlete on Canada's Olympic team at 14, placed ninth in the 200-metre freestyle semifinal Tuesday to finish just outside the top eight advancing.
Women's 1,500-metre freestyle made its Olympic debut in Tokyo. Katrina Bellio, a 16-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., finished 21st.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 26, 2021.
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
An orca whale calf that has been stranded in a B.C. lagoon for weeks after her pregnant mother died swam out on her own early Friday morning.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
An Ontario man who took out a loan to pay for auto repairs said his car was repossessed after he missed two payments.
Devastating tornadoes tore across parts of eastern Nebraska and northeast Texas Friday as a multi-day severe thunderstorm event ramped up in the central United States, injuring at least three people.
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
Donald Trump's defence team attacked the credibility Friday of the prosecution's first witness in his hush money case, seeking to discredit testimony detailing a scheme between Trump and a tabloid to bury negative stories to protect the Republican's 2016 presidential campaign.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.