Maggie Mac Neil

Childhood and Family

Born in the city of Jiujiang when China’s one-child policy was still in effect, Maggie was one of many baby girls who were abandoned by their biological parents. At age one, Maggie was adopted from a Chinese orphanage by Susan McNair and Edward Mac Neil of London, Ontario. Maggie’s younger sister, Clara, was also adopted from China several years later.  

Early Swimming Career

Maggie Mac Neil began swimming at the age of two. She participated in mom-and-tot lessons and lived in a house with a swimming pool. Mac Neil’s mother, who is a doctor, emphasized water safety. After having success in her early years of swimming lessons, Mac Neil was encouraged to try out for the London Aquatic Club. “The way she looked in the water, her work ethic and her attention to detail, we knew we had something pretty special,” London Aquatic Club head coach Andrew Craven has said.

A day before Mac Neil was to compete in her first swim meet at age eight, she fell at school and sprained her wrist. She continued to compete even while in significant pain. That same year, she first dreamed of representing Canada at the Olympic Summer Games.  

When she was in in her early teens, Mac Neil attended camps run by three-time American Olympic medalist Gary Hall Sr. Hall worked with Mac Neil on her mechanics and technique, believing that she could be a truly great butterfly swimmer if she had a stronger dolphin kick.  

Through her teenage years, Mac Neil trained out of the London Aquatic Club under the tutelage of Andrew Craven. In 2013, she set the Ontario short course record in the 200 m butterfly in the 11- and 12-year-old girls’ division with a time of 2:21.78. At the 2014 Canadian Age Group Championships in Winnipeg, Mac Neil won silver medals in the girls’ 50 m backstroke and in the girls’ 200 m butterfly (losing the gold to Penny Oleksiak).

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Representing Canada

In 2015, at age 15, Mac Neil represented Canada for the first time. She won a silver medal in the 100 m butterfly at the 2015 Australian Age Group Championships in Sydney.

In 2016, Mac Neil tried out for but did not make the Canadian Olympic team. While Canada’s swimming stars — most notably Oleksiak — were dominating the 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Mac Neil was competing at the Canadian Swimming Championships in Edmonton. She won the gold medal in the women’s 100 m and 200 m butterfly, and silver in the women’s 50 m butterfly. 

Asthma

The 2017 swimming season would be a turning point in Mac Neil’s swimming career. At the World Cup in Singapore, she struggled to breathe in the high humidity. “I got home and… went to a respirologist, and found out I have sports-induced asthma, which can be worse with chlorine exposure,” Mac Neil told Swimming Canada. The personal challenges continued at the 2018 Ontario Provincial Swimming Championships, where Mac Neil struggled with her breathing in the 200 m butterfly. However, her condition improved once she started working with a specialist and taking the proper medication. She also started to focus on swimming sprint distances instead of longer races.  

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With a new strategic approach to accommodate her asthma, Mac Neil had a great 2018 season. She won the 100 m butterfly and finished second in the 100 m backstroke at the Canadian National Swimming Championships for the second time in April, taking advantage of the fact that many top Canadian swimmers were competing at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. At the 2018 Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Fiji, Mac Neil won the gold medal in the 100 m butterfly, as well as two relay medals. Her 100 m butterfly time of 58.38 seconds was a meet record and good enough to win gold by 1.13 seconds.

World Champion

Mac Neil received the honour of Swimming Canada’s Breakout Swimmer of the Year in 2019. At the 2019 Canadian Swimming Trials in Toronto, she won the women’s 100 m butterfly with a time of 56.19 seconds. The performance helped her make the Canadian national senior team for the first time. At the 2019 FINA World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, Mac Neil was even better in the 100 m butterfly, posting a gold medal-winning time of 55.83 seconds, upsetting world record-holder and Olympic champion Sarah Sjöström of Sweden. Mac Neil also was part of the Canadian teams that won bronze medals in the women’s 4x100 m freestyle relay and the women’s 4x100 m medley relay.    

NCAA Career Highlights

After graduating from Sir Frederick Banting Secondary School in London in 2018 (see Frederick Banting), Mac Neil accepted an athletic scholarship at the University of Michigan. Her success at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) level was extraordinary. She was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2019 as well as University of Michigan Female Athlete of the year in 2020. She was a two-time Big Ten Swimmer of the Year (2020, 2021), and a two-time gold medallist at the 2021 NCAA Swimming Championships (women’s 100 yard butterfly and women’s 100 yard freestyle). Mac Neil also became the first swimmer ever to break the 49-second barrier in the women’s 100 yard butterfly at the NCAA Championships, with a time of 48.89 seconds.

Mac Neil was studying toward a Bachelor of General Studies and planned to attend graduate school in law or medicine following her fifth year at Michigan. However, in 2022–23, her final year of NCAA eligibility, she transferred to Louisiana State University where she continued training with former Michigan coach Rick Bishop. At the 2023 SEC Championships, she won the 50-yard freestyle with an NCAA record time of 20.79 seconds and set an NCAA record for the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 45.26 seconds for the gold-medal winning team in the 4x100-yard freestyle relay. She was named 2023 SEC female swimmer of the year and won the SEC Commissioner’s Trophy for scoring the most points at the conference championships. She finished her collegiate career as a 25-time All-American.

Olympic Champion

The 2020 Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo were delayed one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 2020 lockdown, Mac Neil trained at home in London, practicing her kicks and turns in the family’s small backyard pool. After the 2020–21 collegiate year finished, she relocated to Toronto to train at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre under coach Ben Titley.

On 25 July 2021, Mac Neil was part of the team that won Canada’s first medal of the Games. She, along with Kayla Sanchez, Rebecca Smith and Penny Oleksiak, posted a time of 3:32.78 to win silver in the women’s 4x100 m freestyle relay. (Taylor Ruck, who swam in place of Mac Neil in an earlier heat, also received a medal.) Australia won the gold medal, while Canada beat the United States by .03 seconds to take silver.

It was then Mac Neil’s time to shine in her specialty, the women’s 100 m butterfly. Despite only having the sixth-fastest time in the semifinals, and the seventh-fastest time in the final heat through the first 50 m, Mac Neil had an explosive final 50m to move from seventh to first. Her time of 55.59 seconds was an Americas record, and the third fastest time ever. Mac Neil also became only the third Canadian Olympic female gold medallist in swimming, after Anne Ottenbrite (women’s 200 m breaststroke, 1984 Olympic Summer Games) and Oleksiak (women’s 100 m freestyle, 2016 Olympic Games). Mac Neil’s third Olympic medal was a bronze in the women’s 4x100 m medley relay alongside Kylie Masse, Sydney Pickrem and Oleksiak (as well as Taylor Ruck and Kayla Sanchez, who swam in some of the heats).

Mac Neil was named the best female athlete at the 2020 Olympic Summer Games by the Association of National Olympic Committees.

International Competition, 2021–24

At the 2021 World Swimming Championships, a short course competition, Mac Neil won five medals including gold in the 100m butterfly and 50m backstroke.

Heading into the 2022 World Aquatics Championships, however, Mac Neil and Swimming Canada's high-performance director, John Atkinson, decided that for the sake of her mental health she would only compete in relays and not any individual events. “It’s hard to stay at the top and that pressure really got to me,” Mac Neil told CBC Sports at the time. “I need a chill summer.” She later called it “the best decision I made for myself at the time, both physically and emotionally.”

At the 2022 World Aquatics Championships, Mac Neil was part of the relay teams that won silver in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay and bronze in the women’s 4x100m medley relay. She also swam in the heats of the silver medal-winning 4x100m mixed freestyle relay team. Mac Neil then returned to individual events at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. She won gold in the women’s 100 m breaststroke with a Commonwealth record time of 56.36. She also helped win four relay medals: two silver and two bronze.

Mac Neil then closed out the year with a dominant performance at the 2022 FINA World Swimming Championships in Melbourne. She won gold in the women’s 50 m butterfly with a Canadian record time of 24.64. She was part of the bronze medal-winning 4×50 m mixed medley relay team, which set a Canadian record with a time of 1:36.93. She also won gold and set world records in both the 50 m backstroke (25.25) and the 100 m butterfly (54.05) while winning two more bronze relay medals. She was named the best female swimmer at the meet.

At the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, Mac Neil won silver in the 100 m butterfly and in the women’s 4x100m medley relay. But she fell short of the podium in several other individual and relay events. However, she resumed her dominance at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago. She set a record for the most gold medals won by a Canadian at a Pan Am Games with five: 4×100 m freestyle relay, 100 m butterfly (with Pan Am record time of 56.94), 100 m freestyle, 50 m freestyle and 4 × 100 m medley relay. She also won a silver in the 4×100 m mixed medley and a bronze in the 4×100 m mixed freestyle relay for a total of seven medals. She was also named Best Female Athlete at the 2023 Panam Sports Awards.

Honours and Awards

In addition to the honours and awards mentioned above, Maggie Mac Neil received a Young Woman of Excellence Award from the YMCA of Southwestern Ontario in 2023.