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Canada's Kylie Masse swims in her heat of the women's 100-metre backstroke at the World Swimming Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, on July 22, 2019.Lee Jin-man/The Associated Press

Canada qualified for the new 4x100-metre mixed medley relay swimming event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics by finishing fifth on Wednesday at the world aquatics championships.

Kylie Masse of Windsor, Ont., Maggie MacNeil of London, Ont., Richard Funk of Edmonton and Yuri Kisil of Edmonton finished in 3 minutes 43.06 seconds, more than two seconds back of Britain (3:40.68) for bronze.

Australia took gold and the United States captured silver.

“We’re really excited. I know we ended up getting bronze a couple years ago and tonight we weren’t quite on that, but I’m so proud of us and I think we’re really good for where we are right now, and we have a spot next year which is all that really matters,” MacNeil said.

MacNeil fell short of winning her third medal of the meet after taking gold in the women’s 100-metre butterfly and bronze in the women’s 4x100-metre freestyle relay.

Masse gave Canada its fourth medal of the competition by winning gold in the women’s 100 metre backstroke for the second worlds in a row on Tuesday.

Also Wednesday, Toronto’s Penny Oleksiak finished sixth in the women’s 200-metre freestyle.

The swim meet concludes Sunday.

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