Canadian record holders Masse, Liendo lead swimming team into Olympic semifinals

Canadian record holder Kylie Masse was never pressured in her preliminary swim and cruised to the semifinals of the women's Olympic 200-metre backstroke later Thursday.

Masse, who captured a silver medal in the event at the Tokyo Games three years ago, touched the wall in two minutes 8.54 seconds to win her heat by more than one second over Great Britain's Honey Osrin (2:09.57) at La Defense Arena in Nanterre, France.

"A nice smooth swim," is how CBC Sports analyst Byron MacDonald described the effort by Masse, who will race at 3:19 p.m. ET for a chance to become the sixth Canadian woman to medal at the Olympics in the event.

"I'm pleased," Masse added of her heat race. "A 200 is never easy in the morning. I think the pain is always there, but I wanted to stay as controlled as possible. It's a tight group in this field so I just wanted to feel my stroke a little.

"[The] nature of our sport is nothing is guaranteed and you have to keep pushing and going to the very last moment."

The four-time Olympic medallist was 31-100ths of a second from securing a podium finish in the women's 100 back on Tuesday.

"It's tough getting back up," said MacDonald. "She was disappointed [in the 100 result]. A good swim but she's so used to being on the [medal] podium that she has to re-focus and get another race under her belt. That's what she did here. She took care of business."

Competing at her third Olympics, Masse also won silver in the 100 in Tokyo and bronze in the 100 medley relay.

Her nine world championship medals is tied with Penny Oleksiak for most among Canadians.

Ottawa-born Regan Rathwell went 2:12.21 in the 200 back heat Thursday in her first Olympic race but didn't advance, finishing 22nd.

Rathwell, who grew up 40 kilometres