DOHA, Qatar – After thinking she was out, Emma Finlin is in as a qualifier for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Finlin just missed earning Canada the continental qualifying spot for the Americas in Saturday’s 10-km marathon at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Qatar. The 18-year-old from the Edmonton Keyano Swim Club finished 24^th, just 0.7 seconds behind 23^th-place finisher Martha Sandoval of Mexico.

World Aquatics, however, announced Tuesday that Canada will receive the unallocated spot for Oceania, which had no competing athletes outside the two Australians already qualified.

“Therefore, the Oceania Continental Representation position was allocated to the highest-placing woman competitor in the open water swimming 10km event in Doha whose country was not yet qualified for the Olympics (F.1). In this respect, Canada was reallocated this NOC quota spot,” the announcement from World Aquatics stated.

As Canada’s top performer, Swimming Canada will now nominate Finlin to compete for her country in that spot at this summer’s Games in Paris.

“It’s great that we can nominate Emma to the Swimming Canada selection committee and Canadian Olympic Committee to represent at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games,” said Swimming Canada High Performance Director and National Coach John Atkinson. “She’s shown great improvement from her 30^th-place position at the world championships last year. She’s improving this year and now she knows she can focus ahead and prepare with her coach Paul Birmingham for Paris.”

“It doesn’t feel real right now,” said Finlin, who has had an emotional few days.

She shared a teary-eyed hug with her mother Saturday when she saw her after the race.

“I think I was so exhausted after the 10-km I just broke down into my mom’s arms. It wasn’t even out of disappointment necessarily but I kind of felt defeated it was so close,” she said. “I knew I could do it but it was going to be a really hard thing to achieve. Then being that close hurt a bit. It’s been really emotional because I had accepted I hadn’t made the team. Then when (I sat down with team staff) and they said we had an opportunity, so I got really excited but tried to be really even in case it ended up not working out.”

Finlin was in 28^th place with half a lap to go in the six-lap race, more than 12 seconds behind Maria Bramont-Arias of Peru. She passed her and three others, finishing nearly 13 seconds ahead of Bramont-Arias, who came in 25^th.

“I knew going in Mark and my coach Paul from home told me, ‘You don’t know who’s going to be next to you so every spot matters.’ That last lap really hurt but I knew if I kept going I’d catch as many people as I could,” Finlin said.

“As I said after the race it was her best ever swim,” Perry added. “She put herself in the frame, put herself in the mix. It’s a really good job for a young athlete, very promising for the future and I’m very pleased for her.”

Action continues Wednesday with the 5-km races. Finlin and Laila Oravsky of the Barrie (Ont.) Trojans start at 10:30 a.m. local time (2:30 a.m. ET), followed by Eric Hedlin of Victoria’s Pacific Coast Swimming and Hau-Li Fan of High Performance Centre – Vancouver in the men’s race at 1 p.m. (5 a.m. ET). Open water competition wraps up with the mixed 4×1,500-m relay Thursday at 10:30 a.m. local (2:30 a.m. ET).

More than 2,600 athletes representing 201 countries and the World Aquatics Refugee Team are in Doha to compete in 75 medal events across six aquatic sports, including the eight-day pool swim meet beginning Feb. 11.

Live streaming and extensive coverage will run from Feb. 2-18 on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem. See the full streaming and broadcast schedule here.

Fans can also follow along on Instagram and X through @CBCOlympics and @SwimmingCanada for highlights throughout the competition.

Full World Aquatics statement re: Paris 2024 open water qualifying.