Canadian Olympic Medalist Michelle Toro Announces Birth Of Jacob Murray Toro

Now-retired Canadian Olympic medalist Michelle Toro and husband Guillermo Toro have announced the birth of their child Jacob Murray Toro who was born on December 7, 2020.

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Toro raced for Canada at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, earning bronze in the 4×100 free, and won gold in both the 4×100 free and 4×100 medley relays for Canada at the 2015 Pan American Games.

Michelle Toro earned her Olympic medal by racing in the prelims of the 4×100 freestyle relay at Rio 2016. She helped secure a third-place seed going into the finals along with Chantal van Landeghem, Taylor Ruck, and Sandrine Mainville. In the final, Toro was replaced by Penny Oleksiak as Canada raced to a bronze medal in the event, behind the Australians for gold and the Americans for silver.

Williams has since recounted her initial dismay that she would be left of the relay and how she turned that disappointment into positivity. In a 2018 interview with Swimming Canada, Toro explained that when she was given the news, she “found a spot under a staircase and let it out”, she went on to add, however, “after that I was like, OK, that’s all the time I get for feeling sorry for myself. Then I turned it around and consciously decided to be there for the team.”

Toro offered a final reflection on the matter by saying that “in swimming, it takes five or six people to win a medal in a relay, and (Ben Titley, her coach) helped me realize that,” “I was able to be there for the team and those girls and felt just as much a part of that win as they were. That’s encouraged with every relay prelim swimmer now, it’s been kind of the new normal for Canadian relays.”

That “new normal” contributed to Toro’s gold medal performance in the 4×50 freestyle relay at the 2016 World Swimming Championships in Windsor, Canada. Toro’s teammates Alexia Zevnik and Sarah Darcel swam the event in the prelims along with Taylor Ruck and Sandrine Mainville. For the final, Toro and Penny Oleksiak took over Zevnik and Darcel’s spots in the relay, topping the podium ahead of silver medalists, the Netherlands bronze medalists, Italy.

Toro went on to race at the 2017 World Championships at which she swam the 50 freestyle individually, advancing to the semi-finals at ultimately ending in 10th place with a 24.66. There, she also swam in the prelims of the 4×100 freestyle relay for Canada, advancing the team to the finals where they finished in 4th.

Since her retirement from the sport, Toro has begun working as a nurse at The Hospital for Sick Children in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Her and husband Guillherme tied the knot back in December of 2016 when following the 2016 Short Course World Championships. The couple have been involved in the swimming community for decades, having met as teenagers and teammates on the North York Aquatic Club in Toronto.