Maggie Mac Neil makes Pan Am Games history for Canada with 5th swimming gold in Chile

Maggie Mac Neil swam the butterfly portion of the women's 4x100-metre medley relay on Wednesday and helped Canada to victory for its 23rd medal in the pool at the Pan Am Games in Santiago, Chile.

It was the fifth win of these Games for Mac Neil, who passed fellow swimmer Jessica Deglau (1999) and two others for most gold medals by a Canadian at a single Pan Am Games.

The 23-year-old from London, Ont., has also won gold in women's 100 butterfly, 100 freestyle along with relays in the 50 free and 100 free.

Table tennis player Lijuan Geng (1995) and gymnast Ernestine Russell-Carter (1959) also won four gold at a single Pan Am Games.

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Mac Neil was also a member of the mixed relay teams that picked up silver and bronze to give her seven medals in all, another national record after swimmers Marianne Limpert and Joanne Malar (1995), Ralph Hutton (1967) and Deglau won six.

In Wednesday's race, Danielle Hanus and Rachel Nicol put Canada in silver-medal position at the Aquatics Center following the backstroke and breaststroke. Enter Mac Neil, the reigning Olympic champion in the butterfly, with her team trailing the United States by 25-100ths of a second.

One hundred metres later, the Canadians had clocked a time of three minutes 4.94 seconds and led by 54-100ths as Mary-Sophie Harvey took over in the freestyle. With 50 metres left, Catie DeLoof cut into the deficit and Canada only led by 11-100ths, but Harvey held her off.

Mexico was awarded the bronze medal after a 4:04.73 performance, just 6-100ths ahead of Colombia.

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Earlier, Canada's Sydney Pickrem made it two gold medals and one Pan Am Games record in Chile, cruising to victory in 2:09.04 in the women's 200 individual medley.

Pickrem, 26, took down the Games