Masse, who was seeded fourth in the world going into Tokyo, bettered her own Canadian record, touching the wall in 2:05.42 to reach the Olympic podium for the third time in her career.
"I've been working a lot on my 200 pace and I've done a lot of easy speed training so I really just put the confidence and trust in myself and my coaches and what I've done this whole year and tried to take it out hard and then really hold on coming home," said Masse.
A 25-year-old from LaSalle, Ont., Masse claimed the 100-metre backstroke silver medal on Monday night, after earning the bronze medal in her signature event at the 2016 Games in Rio.
"I couldn't have asked for anything more than a best time in an Olympic final so I'm really happy," continued Masse. "It is an incredible honour to represent Canada and to contribute to Canada's success here at the Games. It's been so great and I'm so inspired by all the Canadian athletes right now. I'm really honoured to be able to bring some hardware home."
Masse, who graduated from U of T's Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education last month, swam the second-fastest time following preliminaries (2:08.23) yesterday morning and followed that up with a time of 2:07.82 in last night's semifinals to rank fourth heading into tonight's final.
Varsity Blues head coach Byron MacDonald, who is in Tokyo as a CBC swimming commentator, was delighted with Masse's performance.
"The word incredible really doesn't seem to do justice to what Kylie has accomplished today and over the past six years," he said. "Elite sports is about performance on demand and Kylie has always done that. She is so humble and gracious with her success. She is a true champion of sport."
Masse might not be done yet. She could be called upon to swim the backstroke leg of Canada's women's 4x100 medley relay team as the swimming competition wraps up in Tokyo tomorrow night (July 31, 10:15pm EST).
During her time with the Blues, the two-time world champion went undefeated at five consecutive OUA championships, never losing an individual or relay race. The five-time OUA female swimmer of the year, five-time OUA first team all-star and the 2015 OUA female rookie of the year also twice won the Dr. Jeno Tihanyi award for individual medley excellence and earned major grand slams in all three backstroke events.
On the national stage, Masse earned the grand slam award for four career victories in the backstroke events and was named the U SPORTS female swimmer of the year from 2016-19. She was named the BLG award winner as the U SPORTS female athlete of the year across all sports in 2015-16 and was named U of T's T-Holder's female athlete of the year three times (2015-18).
Masse's international highlights while competing for the Blues include a bronze-medal finish in the 100 backstroke at the 2016 Olympic Games, as well as breaking the world record en-route to a gold-medal finish at the 2017 FINA world championships.