Reuters
[Source: Reuters]
The curtain came down on two of the Pan American Games’ showcase sports on Wednesday while the event’s biggest names, Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade and Canadian swimmer Maggie MacNeil, bid a golden goodbye.
Andrade, perhaps the most intriguing and charismatic gymnast after Simone Biles, provided the Games with some badly needed glitz, scooping up four medals including a second gold on Wednesday with a victory on the balance beam ahead of team mate Flavia Saraiva.
Earlier Andrade had won the Pan Am gold on the vault, adding it to her Olympic and world championship titles on the apparatus, and picked up silvers in the team and uneven bars.
While Andrade had a productive Games in Santiago, she could not match MacNeil, who leaves with a seven medal haul including five gold (100 metres butterfly, 100 freestyle, 50 freestyle, 4×100 freestyle relay and 4×100 medley relay), the most ever by a Canadian athlete in any sport at a single Pan Am Games.
Her seven medals (five gold, a silver and bronze) are also a single Games high for a Canadian swimmer.
“I had no idea what the records were,” said MacNeil. “The 100 fly was the goal for me to secure that title, but other than that I was like, ‘I’ll just see what happens’.”
In the end it took a team effort to get MacNeil her fifth gold – the 23-year-old swimming the third leg butterfly of the medley relay, handing the lead to freestyler Mary-Sophie Harvey, who beat the U.S. to the wall for the win.
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