Summer McIntosh Named Swimming World Female World/American Swimmer of the Year After Olympic Triple
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Summer McIntosh Named Swimming World Female World Swimmer of the Year After Olympic Triple
This young Canadian had been building toward this moment for years. Summer McIntosh made her Olympic debut at just 14 years old, just missing a medal with a fourth-place finish in the 400 freestyle. A year later, McIntosh captured her first two worlds title, and in March 2023, she became a world-record holder, lowering the existing marks in both the 400 free and 400 IM.
Now, McIntosh is the clear-cut No. 1 female swimmer in the world for the first time. She won three gold medals at the Paris Olympics and then three further golds at the Short Course World Championships, resulting in her unanimous selection as Female World Swimmer of the Year for 2024. McIntosh previously finished second to Australia’s Kaylee McKeown in the voting in 2023, and this is her second consecutive American Female Swimmer of the Year.
McIntosh, who trains under Brent Arckey at the Sarasota Sharks in Florida, opened her year by taking down her own world record in the 400 IM, swimming a time of 4:24.38 that ranks almost two seconds ahead of the second-fastest swimmer in history. That was a prelude for an Olympics in which McIntosh was dominant across a wide swath of events.
On the first day of the Olympic swimming competition, McIntosh earned her first Olympic medal in the 400 free, taking silver as Australia’s Ariarne Titmus pulled away to defend her title. The next day, McIntosh’s performance in the 400 IM was pure dominance, leading from start to finish and winning gold by more than five-and-a-half seconds despite not swimming close to her own world record.
“Definitely pretty surreal,” McIntosh said after her first gold. “I was very happy to get the job done tonight because that was a goal of mine to stand on top of the podium and win a gold medal. To accomplish that, I was very happy to get that.”
From there, the job would get tougher as McIntosh faced a slew of competitors in the midst of exceptional Games of their own. In the 200 butterfly final, Regan Smith swam a lifetime-best mark of 2:03.84, but McIntosh was just a bit better, holding off Smith’s stellar underwater kickouts and valiant final length. McIntosh finished in 2:03.03, the second-fastest time ever.
And in the 200 IM final, McIntosh faced two others who had won gold in Paris, McKeown (100 and 200 backstroke) and American Kate Douglass (200 breaststroke). The outcome was in doubt for most of the race, but McIntosh surged ahead in the final meters to claim gold in an Olympic-record time of 2:06.56. The win made her the first female swimmer to win three gold medals at one Olympics since Katinka Hosszu in 2016.
McIntosh would also swim on all three Canadian women’s relays, but the strength of the Australian, American and Chinese teams left Canada in fourth place on all three occasions.
“I’m just so proud of myself how I was able to recover and manage these events because it is a lot. The reason I’m able to do this is because of all the hard work and dedication I’ve given to this moment, along with all my family and my teammates and coaches that have also worked so hard for me to be here today.”
To conclude the year, McIntosh had a sensational performance at the 25-meter edition of the World Championships, setting world records on her way to gold in the 400 free, 200 fly and 400 IM, and she even earned silver in an event she had never before raced at a global meet, the 200 back. Moving forward, that event could become a regular part of her program, and she has also established herself as one of the world’s best in the 200 free, which was not part of her event lineup at either major meet in 2024 because of schedule conflicts.
McIntosh was 17 at the time of her Olympic domination, and she has since turned 18, giving her potentially years of dominance ahead. She has improved year-to-year in all her main events, and she has developed a reputation for excelling in the big moments, hardly ever failing to produce her best with international medals on the line. That trajectory could mean this global honor for McIntosh is the first of many.
World Female Swimmer of the Year
- Summer McIntosh (Canada)
- Kaylee McKeown (Australia)
- Katie Ledecky (United States
- Sarah Sjostrom (Sweden)
- Ariarne Titmus (Australia)
American Female Swimmer of the Year
- Summer McIntosh (Canada)
- Katie Ledecky (United States)
- Regan Smith (United States)
- Torri Huske (United States)
- Kate Douglass (United States)