Chevy Chase native Phoebe Bacon just missed the podium in the 200-meter backstroke at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics on Friday afternoon, placing fourth with a time of 2:05.61. She came in behind bronze medalist Canadian Kylie Masse, who finished with a time of 2:05.57. Australian Kaylee McKeown won the gold medal and American Regan Smith took silver.
Bacon, 21, graduated from Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda in 2020. She had finished fourth in the semi-finals on Thursday with a time of 2:09.
A fifth-year senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Bacon finished second in the 200-meter backstroke to make her second straight Olympic team by .07 seconds during the trials in June. She joined her Stone Ridge classmates Katie Ledecky, 27 and Erin Gemmell, 19, on the team.
On Thursday, Ledecky made history by becoming the most decorated female swimmer in history after earning her 13th medal when the U.S. women’s relay team placed second in the 4×200-meter freestyle race. Gemmell was also on the silver medal-winning team.
“I am extremely excited to be headed to Paris with Erin and Katie,” Bacon told MoCo360 in June. “I think it is just such a special thing to have three of us from the same area and the same high school all on one Olympic team together, competing with each other and cheering each other on—this definitely a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity.”
Bacon also competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
More than 800 Stone Ridge community members attended a pep rally last week at the private Catholic girls school to cheer on the alums. Friends and family made signs, put on Olympics-themed temporary tattoos or showed their support with giant cutouts of the athletes’ heads.