Olympics Mini Feature: Summer McIntosh Chasing Fistful of Paris Medals
Had the Tokyo Olympics been held in 2020 as originally scheduled, Summer McIntosh likely would not have qualified as a 13-year-old, but the one-year delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic gave her a little extra time to develop. She was still one of the youngest swimmers competing in Tokyo in 2021, but the Canadian prodigy almost won a medal anyway.
As Ariarne Titmus and Katie Ledecky battled for Olympic gold in the 400 freestyle, McIntosh sat in third place for most of the race before falling to fourth over the final 100 meters when China’s Li Bingjie surged. She led off Canada’s 800 free relay team that ended up finishing fourth in a race where the top-three squads all broke the existing world record. And McIntosh just missed making two further finals appearances, placing ninth in the 200 free and 11th in the 800 free.
Even without any hardware to show from Tokyo, the stage was set for a meteoric rise. One year later, McIntosh won four medals at the World Championships, including individual gold medals in dominant performances in the 200 butterfly and 400 individual medley. She followed that with six medals, two of them gold, at the Commonwealth Games. Eight months later, she added her first two individual world records, clocking 3:56.08 to break Titmus’ global standard in the 400 free and 4:25.87 to beat Katinka Hosszu’s world mark in the 400 IM.
However, her return to the World Championships in 2023 would be a lesson in perseverance. Entering the 400 free final on Day 1 as the world record holder, but facing off against Titmus and Ledecky, McIntosh faltered badly, falling all the way to fourth in the final as Titmus stole the record back. But McIntosh was not phased: She went on to repeat as gold medalist in the 200 fly and 400 IM while also scoring her first 200 free medal at a major meet.
Now, she will head to Paris to swim four individual events—all of which she will be favored to win a medal—and likely all three Canadian women’s relays. McIntosh already decided not to swim the 800 free in Paris even though last February at the Southern Zone South Sectional Championships in Orlando, she handed Ledecky her first defeat in the event in more than 13 years with a Canadian record of 8:11.39. (Of course, Ledecky still owns the 16 fastest times in the event.) She recently decided to opt out of the 200 freestyle.
On the opening day of Olympic swimming, McIntosh will face Titmus, Ledecky and New Zealand’s Erika Fairweather in a hyped-up 400 free final. Two days after that, she will contest the 400 IM. The 200 fly will follow, with McIntosh going up against American Regan Smith in a battle for gold. She will conclude her week with the 200 IM, an event she has never raced on the global level, but one in which she is already the sixth-fastest woman in history, having clocked 2:06.89 last year.
In the 400 IM, McIntosh is considered a near-lock for gold, as her best time is seven seconds faster than the time that won silver at last year’s World Championships. McIntosh broke her world record again at Canada’s Olympic Trials in May, and her time of 4:24.38 is now two seconds faster than Hosszu or anyone else has ever swum. Only one other active swimmer has ever broken 4:30, Australia’s Kaylee McKeown, but she will not contest the 400 IM in Paris.
Breaststroke is the obvious weakness in McIntosh’s medley swimming, but her year-to-year improvement came almost entirely in that stroke. In her 2023 world-record performance, she split 1:18.92; this year, 1:17.13. That was still a second behind Hosszu’s breaststroke split from the previous world record, but when McIntosh is one of the fastest butterflyers and freestylers in history, that does not matter as much.
