Summer McIntosh changed the swimming world within a remarkable five days, what it means for Australia’s swimmers
History beckons at the LA Olympics for record-breaking Canadian teenage phenom Summer McIntosh after she changed world swimming in five successive days.
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The arrival of each new Summer is normally a time for Australia’s champion swimmers to shine and start getting excited about what’s ahead.
But not so when it comes to Summer McIntosh, the Canadian teenage sensation who has taken a wrecking ball to the sport’s most prized world records while threatening to ruin Australia’s golden hopes for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Already regarded as the best female swimmer in the world after she won three individual gold medals at last year’s Paris Olympics, McIntosh might yet turn out to be the greatest of all time if her performances over the past week are anything to go by.
In five successive days at the Canadian national trials for this year’s world championships in Singapore, the 18-year-old from Toronto changed female swimming forever, setting three world records – in 400m freestyle, 200m individual medley and 400m individual medley – and coming within a blink of an eye of breaking two more in 200m butterfly and 800m freestyle.
One of the records she wiped from the books, the 400m freestyle, belonged to Australia’s Ariarne Titmus.
The Terminator is already a legend of Australian swimming because of the insatiable fighting qualities she showed to overcome Katie Ledecky but this is the biggest challenge she’s ever faced.
Six years older than McIntosh, Titmus hasn’t lost a 400m race since 2018 but is under no illusions that the Canadian is gunning for her.
Currently on a sabbatical after Paris, Titmus couldn’t hide her disappointment at losing her cherished record, saying it “sucks”, but adding it would give her fresh motivation to train harder when she does return to training later this year.
The Dolphins have been on a high after the team’s amazing performances over the past two Olympic cycles, but McIntosh’s performances this week have reminded everyone just how quickly the tide changes in elite swimming.
Less than a year on from Paris, the level that will be required for success in LA has risen again.
The challenge for Australia is that McIntosh is on a collision course with some of the Dolphins’ best performers, and not just Titmus.
Lani Pallister, who broke Titmus’ national 800m freestyle record at the Australian trials in Adelaide this week, is also facing the prospect of going head-to-head with the Canadian.
So too is Kaylee McKeown, in 200m individual medley, and possibly Mollie O’Callaghan, if, as rumoured, McIntosh adds the 200m freestyle to her program for LA.
McIntosh finished a close third behind O’Callaghan and Titmus at the 2023 world championships when she was still just 16, but dropped the 200m free for Paris and won’t swim it in Singapore, because she’s already targeting five individual events.
For history buffs, five is swimming’s magic number when it comes to solo events.
The only swimmer to have won medals in five individual events at a single world championships is Michael Phelps, who achieved the feat at Melbourne in 2007.
Barring injury or a shock turnaround in her form or anyone else’s, everything points to McIntosh matching Phelps’ haul in Singapore in July and August.
Then there’s the LA Olympics, which McIntosh has already identified as her main goal.
She will only be 21 in 2028 but looming as the star attraction for a competition taking place in front of 40,000 spectators at Sofi Stadium.
World Aquatics, the sport’s governing body, understands the importance of having star performers so has added more events and is extending its current nine-day program to give swimmers like McIntosh a better chance at winning even more medals.
History beckons as only two swimmers have won five medals in individual events at a single Olympics.
The first was Australia’s Shane Gould, at Munich in 1972, when she was a teenager. Gould won three golds, a silver and a bronze, then retired the next year, aged 16.
Phelps won five individual medals, all gold, as well as three more in relays at Beijing in 2008, under the guidance of Bob Bowman.
A master coach who specialises in helping swimmers handle massive programs most think impossible, Bowman was also the mastermind behind French national hero Leon Marchand when he won five individual golds in Paris.
And take a guess who is joining his training program later this year?
Yes, it’s McIntosh.
If she hadn’t already, that’s the warning sign to all her rivals that she’s just getting started and has bigger things in store.
“I know I can go faster,” she said this week. “It’s more fun chasing records that you haven’t broken yet.
“It’s immensely easier to break your own, because you kind of have to look at it as just going your personal best time.
“It is just all that energy and anger, blood, sweat and tears built up. Having an amazing swim is just really satisfying.”
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