Everything you need to know about Summer McIntosh as she dominates the World Aquatics Championships

Globe and Mail

6 days ago

The World Aquatics Championships are underway in Singapore and Canada's Summer McIntosh is – as expected – making big waves.
The 18-year-old has already won three gold medals this week, and is looking for two more to tie American legend Michael Phelps's record for most individual golds won at a single world championship.
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A generational talent already among the top swimmers in the world, McIntosh may be the best swimmer to ever come out of Canada. She is a three-time Olympic champion, seven-time World Champion, holds six current world records and has set precedents that would have been unthinkable in Canadian swimming even a decade ago.
Here's everything you need to know about McIntosh as she looks to make history yet again this week.
McIntosh is 18 years old and was born and raised in Toronto. Her mother, Jill Horstead, competed for Canada in the 200-metre butterfly at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games, and her older sister, Brooke, is a Canadian pairs figure skater.
During the pandemic, McIntosh uprooted her training from Toronto to Florida to train with coach Brent Arckey, a medley specialist, and has been training and studying in Sarasota. In May, she announced she would be moving to Austin, Texas, to train with Bob Bowman, who coached Michael Phelps to his Olympics dominance.
She made her Olympic debut in Tokyo at just 14 years old, making her the youngest Canadian athlete at the 2020 Summer Games.
McIntosh is the reigning Olympic champion in the 200-metre butterfly, the 200-metre individual medley and the 400-metre medley, and set her first of six long-course world records when she was just 16.
At the Canadian swimming trials in June, McIntosh beat her own world records in the 400-metre individual medley and the 400-metre freestyle, and also broke the 200-metre individual medley record. Last December, she also set three short-course world records in 400-metre freestyle, 200-metre butterfly and 400-metre individual medley at the world championships.
Olympian Summer McIntosh may be the best swimmer to ever come out of Canada
In total, she has won four Olympic medals, 11 long-course World Championship medals and set nine world records in six events at the senior level. After her three golds and one silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics in the weeks before her 18th birthday – tying teammate Penny Oleksiak for the most by any Canadian at a single Olympics – Time magazine dubbed the season the 'Summer of Summer.'
McIntosh has won three gold medals so far in Singapore, making her the first Canadian to claim three golds at a single world championship.
She won gold in the 200-metre butterfly on Thursday, coming within a quarter of a second of beating the world record and making her the first to win three world titles in the same event after victories in 2022 and 2023. Her meet-record time of 2:01.99 is the fastest ever in a textile suit and just shy of the world record of 2:01.81 set by China's Liu Zige in 2009 during the era of the now-banned 'super suit.'
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McIntosh also won the 200-metre individual medley and 400-metre freestyle events earlier in the meet. In total, she has won 11 medals at long-course worlds, pushing her past teammate Kylie Masse.
McIntosh was back in the water Friday in the 800-metre freestyle heats ahead of Saturday's final, which saw her go head-to-head with reigning Olympic champion Katie Ledecky.
The final for the 400-metre individual medley, in which McIntosh is the Olympic champion and world-record holder, is on Sunday, the last day of the championship.
McIntosh is aiming for five individual titles – something only Phelps has achieved at a single world championship. If she wins her remaining two events, she would also be the first and only woman to accomplish the feat.
At the Friday heats for the 800-metre freestyle event, McIntosh faced off against reigning Olympic champion Ledecky, an American widely considered the best female swimmer in history. Ledecky, who is going after Phelps's all-time record of 26 gold medals at the world championships, finished more than five seconds ahead of McIntosh with a time of 8:14.62. Ledecky currently has 22 golds at the event.
Last February, McIntosh clocked the season's fastest time at a meet in Florida, handing Ledecky her first loss in the event in 13 years. But she ultimately opted out of that event at the Paris Olympics to focus on other races.
McIntosh said Thursday she was frustrated not to reach the world record in the 200-metre butterfly, but felt optimistic going into the final two events.
'Seeing how close I was gives me a lot of confidence, and the way I felt in that final is amazing as well, so I'm super, super excited for the 800 and then of course the 400 IM,' McIntosh told The Canadian Press. 'Now all my focus is on getting a good recovery tonight and then getting ready for the heats.'
McIntosh's strength across several different strokes and distances at such a young age sets her apart.
She is a precision freestyler, elite at the butterfly and a talented backstroker when it comes to the medleys. Arguably, there was a time when the breaststroke might have been her weakness. But she went to work in 2023 and fixed that ahead of the Paris Olympics.
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While her youth and power were what first turned heads, McIntosh's coaches, teammates and observers have noted that it's her mental strength, discipline and ability to handle the intense pressure that help set her apart from peers even years her senior.
'We've never had anybody at this level,' Brent Hayden, who won bronze for Canada at the London Olympics in 2012 and swam alongside McIntosh in Tokyo, told The Globe and Mail last July. 'I don't think we've seen somebody this good in that many events, ever.'
With reports from Grant Robertson and The Canadian Press