Finlay Knox swims to world bronze in Canadian record time for 1st individual senior medal

Finlay Knox ended talk of his several recent heartbreaking results in the pool.

The swimmer from Okotoks, Alta., reached the medal podium for the first time at a major senior event, clocking one minute 51.04 seconds for bronze in the 200-metre individual medley and lowering his Canadian record from a year ago on Tuesday at the world short course championships in Melbourne, Australia.

"It feels nice, but to see how close I was to second [8-100ths of a second] and to see how big the gap was with first [1:50.15 by South Africa's Matt Sates] I've still got work to do," Knox told Swimming Canada. "That's behind me and I'm just at the beginning."

Carson Foster of the United States beat Knox to the wall in 1:50.96.

The 21 year-old Knox was in much better shape this year in Melbourne than a year ago when he finished ninth in the same event, the lone Canadian without a medal.

"Coming into world short course last year, it was like 12 weeks post [hand] surgery. In the back of my head, I knew what I was capable of, I just didn't execute in the morning. I came ninth and that stung a lot," Knox said.

WATCH | Knox swims to his 1st world championship medal:

Knox has had a pair of heartbreaker outcomes in long course, placing 17th and narrowly missing the Olympic semifinals at the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo and this year's FINA world championships.

Knox noted the near misses "for sure lit a fire in my stomach and coming into this worlds I just didn't want to let that happen again, so I made sure to get the job done in the morning and then show up tonight."

He breezed through preliminaries in third at 1:52.50 and held off multiple international medallists Shaine Casas of the U.S. (1:51.31) and Japan's Daiya Seto (1:51.39) in the final to reach the podium.

'The crowd was going crazy'

"Finals is the easy part. Go in there and race as hard as you can. That's why I love racing," said Knox. "That's why I wake up every morning and push myself. At the very end of the day when you step up on those blocks, you just go and you have fun. That's what I did tonight and came away with a bronze medal."

Elsewhere Tuesday, the Canadian women's 4x100 freestyle relay team mirrored Knox, setting a new national mark and picking up a bronze medal.

The team of Rebecca Smith, Taylor Ruck, Maggie Mac Neil and Katerine Savard posted a time of 3:28.06, defeating Canada's winning time from last year.

"The crowd was going crazy," said Ruck. "It was just so good to see our teammates out there doing what they do best."

Australia won gold in a world record 3:25.43, followed by the Americans in 3:26.29.

WATCH | Canadian women lower national record for freestyle relay bronze:

On the men's side, Ruslan Gaziev, Yuri Kisil, Javier Acevedo and Ilya Kharun clocked 3:07.10 to beat the Canadian 4x100 freestyle record that stood for over 10 years.

Mac Neil is set to race in the 50 butterfly final on Wednesday after topping the field in the semifinals. Canada will also have two women in Wednesday's 100 backstroke final after Ingrid Wilm (second, 55.92) and Kylie Masse (fifth, 56.13) advanced.

Competition in Melbourne runs through Sunday.