Ilya Kharun picks up Canada’s first male Olympic swimming medal in 12 years

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You can thank Ilya Kharun for delivering Canada’s seventh medal of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

France’s Leon Marchand won gold, while Kristóf Milák finished second in the event.

It was Canada’s first male swimming medal since 2012, when Brent Hayden, Ryan Cochrane, and Richard Weinberger all won medals for Canada at the London Olympic Games.

Kharun, aged just 19-years-old, was born in Montreal but raised in Las Vegas. He is heading into his second year as a business major at Arizona State University.

Kharun wasn’t quite able to back up a bit of pre-Olympic smack talk that had been months in the making, though he did make good on part of his prediction.

“I’m going for top three. And more. To beat Leon Marchand. I’m coming,” Kharun told CBC’s Devin Heroux upon qualifying for the Olympics, calling out the French star who is his teammate in the NCAA at ASU. Marchand also won the gold earlier in the Olympics in the 400m medley.

“Representing my country at the Olympics is a privilege and a responsibility I don’t take lightly. I am committed to giving my all, both in and out of the water, as I proudly wear the maple leaf on the world stage,” Kharun shared in a post on Instagram after being named to the Canadian Olympic team.

Canada has picked up two women’s swimming medals so far, both of which have come by way of Summer McIntosh, the 17-year-old Toronto native in her second Olympic Games. McIntosh has a great shot at a third medal, as she’s competing in the 2:45 pm ET/11:45 am PT semifinals later today in the 200m butterfly, where she’s the two-time defending world champion.

Canada also picked up one diving medal earlier in the Olympics. Winning the country’s first-ever 10-metre synchronized diving medals, divers Rylan Wiens and Nathan Zsombor-Murray captured bronze in the men’s synchro platform final on Monday.

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