Summer McIntosh ‘just wants to have fun’

(Paris) Summer McIntosh was about 6 years old and was about to set off on her first cross-country race. A hare had been sent out before the starting gun to show the children the way. She turned to her father and asked, “What happens if I overtake the hare?”

“That’s Summer!” laughs Brooke McIntosh, who recounts the anecdote in an online interview. “She’s always trying to outrun the person in front of her. Even if it’s a grown man running in front of a 1-year-old girl.^D year, she wants to catch up with him and overtake him!”

Brooke McIntosh is no longer surprised by her little sister’s desire to win. “Our two main sports were swimming and figure skating, but we also did track and field at school, gymnastics, a little soccer, but not in a super competitive way. I mean… for Summer, everything is competitive!”

The McIntosh sisters swam and skated together until their early teens, when each chose their own path: ice for one, water for the other. Brooke has become one of the top pairs skaters in the country, winning bronze with Quebec’s Benjamin Mimar, her former partner, at the 2022 world junior championships.

Summer’s temperament was less suited to figure skating, according to her sister.

“Skating is a very technical sport. You have to be very precise and there is little room for error. Summer is a little wilder. She likes to do what she wants. She didn’t like the very strict technical part. She preferred to just skate and have fun. She didn’t want to be judged. She just wanted to do what she wanted to do!”

“She can also clown around”

Swimming fast runs in the family. Their mother, Jill Horstead, competed at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, placing ninth in the 200m butterfly, the event that earned her youngest daughter a first world title in 2023. Their father, Greg McIntosh, a businessman, played hockey and baseball and keeps fit by cycling.

Even though she’s two years older, Brooke, 19, is often mistaken for her junior. At 5’10, Summer is almost six inches taller, but that’s not all.

“She’s always been mature for her age. Even when we were 7 and 9, people thought she was older than me. She’s always been a bit like that, but she can also be a clown. She’s a child when she’s confident with her friends and family. There are two sides to her personality. She’s probably the funniest one in the family and I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation with her where I didn’t laugh!”

In training or in competition, the serious side takes over.

“Yeah, she’s this swimming superstar and she’s really focused, but she’s also really free-spirited and wants to do what she wants. It’s pretty cool to see her change and kind of flip a switch and become so focused on what she’s doing, whether it’s racing, training or doing her exercises out of the water. But other than that, she just wants to have fun.”

A test

In Tokyo, Summer McIntosh competed in her first Olympics at the age of 14, away from her family and isolated in a health bubble. She finished fourth in the 400m freestyle, missed the final of the 200m freestyle by a quarter of a second, finished 11^e 800m and finished just off the podium in the 4 x 200m relay.

A year earlier, the teenager had lost her coach in Etobicoke, Kevin Thorburn, to sudden death at the start of the pandemic. It was the hardest ordeal of her young career.

“I’m impressed with how Summer handles every situation,” Brooke says. “She’s so young, but she acts like she’s 30.” […] She handles pressure incredibly well. She also adapts really well to everything that happens outside of the pool. I don’t think there’s a day that goes by that I’m not impressed by what she does!”

In an interview last week, Summer McIntosh assured that coping with stress was “pretty easy” in the context of the Canadian team’s close-knit nature. This statement does not surprise Brooke, who is impressed by the way she manages to “compartmentalize” each aspect of her life.

Since her sister moved to Florida, where she has been living primarily with her mother since the fall of 2022, Brooke has been communicating with her every day via text, Instagram or Snapchat. “Since our family is spread out, we also try to FaceTime once a week.”

The sisters rarely talk about sports or training, but feel exactly what the other is going through.

“It’s good to have someone who knows what it’s like to have tough days at the office. You’re not always at the top of your game and not every competition can be a success. That’s understandable, but being a top athlete is different. You have to experience it to understand it. This whole family atmosphere is something very special.”

In Milan in 2026?

In Paris, Brooke will attend half of the swimming events, as her figure skating commitments do not allow her to be away from training for much longer. Her parents and an aunt will also be there.

Although she is a top athlete herself, Brooke doesn’t mind the comparison to her sister.

“It’s mostly motivating. She’s my sister. I’m going to be proud of her no matter what, whether she’s an Olympic champion or just an ordinary swimmer. At the end of the day, I’m proud of her and I want her to succeed, to achieve her dreams, which I know are very big. It’s great to be able to watch her grow as a person and as an athlete. I’m just grateful to be able to be so close to her and watch her become a truly incredible human being.”

And who knows, the McIntosh family might gather in Milan to cheer Brooke on at the 2026 Games.