Momentum: Maggie Mac Neil on building a legacy

For most Team Canada fans, Maggie Mac Neil needs no introduction. The 24-year-old is a powerhouse in the pool, bringing home a medal of every colour from Tokyo 2020, which led to her being named Best Female Athlete of the Games by the Association of National Olympic Committees. In 2022, she made the brave decision to take a step back from swimming in individual events to focus on her training and mental health. Maggie returned to individual competition to win five (!!) gold medals at the 2023 Pan Am Games in Santiago. 

Mac Neil will compete in her second Olympic Games at Paris 2024. But her Olympic dream started as a kid watching the Games on TV.

“My family, we’ve always been huge Olympic watchers. [As a kid] I was like: ‘I want to go to the Olympics!’ The people that I was surrounded by–my parents, my coaches, my friends, my teachers–none of them were like ‘yeah, that’s never going to happen.’ They were like, ‘If you put your work in, like, you can do whatever you want.’ And I think that made a really big impact on me–never being told that that was something I couldn’t achieve, even though I didn’t really know what I needed to do to get to that spot,” Mac Neil said on a recent episode of Momentum, a podcast by Team Canada.

And get there she did…even though the lead up to Tokyo 2020 meant training under less than ideal circumstances.

“I was looking back at my videos today and 100 days out from Tokyo, I was doing pull ups on my childhood play set because I was in quarantine, having come back from the [United] States. We opened the pool on I think March 25th of 2020. So I was swimming outside in the snow in the pool that got me into swimming. It was really a full circle moment and that was kind of incredible. But I’m really glad that we’re not in that situation again right now leading into Paris.” 

READ: Magnificent Maggie Mac Neil makes Canadian history at the Pan Am Games

Mac Neil is known for being a sprint butterfly specialist–arguably the hardest of all the swimming strokes.

“I grew up a big Harry Potter fan. It’s kind of like the wand situation in Harry Potter where [the stroke] chooses you.”

But there’s another layer of reasoning why Mac Neil has stuck to the shorter distances.

“Growing up, I would swim everything. I would say arguably the 200m fly was my best event. When I finally was diagnosed with asthma in 2017, I could physically barely finish a 200m fly. So, it was my asthma that actually forced me to focus on the shorter distances, which is what I’ve had the most success in since I’ve gotten on the senior national team. So it’s kind of ironic that I guess I have asthma to thank for that.” 

Ultimately, Mac Neil wants younger swimmers to know that the path to the podium isn’t always a straight line.

“I think the legacy that I want to leave in swimming is not just who I was as a swimmer, but who I was as a figure on the national team. I want to be a role model for younger athletes that are up and coming. I want to show them that you can have an unconventional path,” said Mac Neil. “I mean, I was on the junior national team starting in 2015, but I actually missed the junior national team in 2017. So I took that summer off to relax and kind of rejuvenate myself. And then I had one year left of high school before making a huge change and going to college in the States, which turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. [I want people to remember] the kind of teammate that I was and that I continue to be–super supportive and loyal and someone who just enjoys being around my teammates.”

To listen to Maggie Mac Neil’s full episode, check out Momentum wherever you get your podcasts.