Prodigy, gifted, virtuoso… All qualifiers that can accompany the name of Summer McIntosh. At 15, the Canadian is ahead of some of the greatest female swimmers in history at the same age. A roundabout way of saying that she too could go down in legend.
Posted at 7:00 a.m.
“We can’t know what the future will hold for Summer McIntosh, but we may have before us the greatest swimmer in Canadian history,” said Benoit Huot, multiple Paralympic medalist and analyst at Radio-Canada. , at the end of Worlds which put the Ontarian in the foreground.
With two world championship titles, in the 200m butterfly and 400m medley, in addition to her silver medal in the 400m freestyle and her bronze medal in the 4x200m relay, McIntosh confirmed that she was the most promising swimmer in the world.
Huot thinks that “she has everything to become Canada’s Katie Ledecky”. Which is saying something. Ledecky is considered the most prolific swimmer in history with her 22 World Championship medals, including 19 gold, and her 9 Olympic medals, including 7 gold, at just 25 years old.
However, McIntosh is faster than the American at the same age.
PHOTO OLI SCARFF, AGENCY FRANCE-PRESSE
Summer McIntosh (left) and American Katie Ledecky at the World Swimming Championships last week in Budapest
In the past year, the one who was born a few months after the film’s release The cars experienced a meteoric rise. Among her feats of arms, performances that already have their place among the most memorable in the history of women’s swimming.
His time in the 400m freestyle at the Canadian Trials was 11e Of the history. She clocked the fastest 400m medley in history for athletes 15 and under with a time of 4:29.12, faster than what won Yui Ohashi Olympic gold in Tokyo. She also swam the fastest 200m freestyle and butterfly of all time for an athlete 15 and under.
His performances at the Worlds have caused reactions from all over the world of swimming. Still, McIntosh doesn’t seem to mind too much, not least because she’s aware that winning or losing, life doesn’t depend on swimming alone.
PHOTO ATTILA KISBENEDEK, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Summer McIntosh leaves the podium after receiving the gold medal there for her victory in the 400m medley event.
His trainer, Kevin Thorburn, died in April 2020. Then, in January 2021, his father was diagnosed with cancer. Anything to shake a young girl still in high school. However, McIntosh kept her cool and beat Penny Oleksiak at the Canadian Trials to qualify for her first Olympics at age 14.
Moreover, if Huot foresees that McIntosh could perhaps be more successful than the greatest Olympic medalist in the history of the country, it is because the teenager has already won two medals that Oleksiak is still not managed to win gold in individual events at the World Championships.
“She doesn’t have any Olympic medals yet, but she has the attitude, the desire, the support and the coaching,” Huot said.
A golden determination
Beyond his results, McIntosh impresses with his composure, maturity and an insatiable desire to do better with each new pitch. Daughter of Jill McIntosh, a swimmer who represented Canada at the Los Angeles Games in 1984, she knows what it takes to succeed. She also knows that she will achieve this by keeping a smile, which she adamantly displays before and after each race.
According to Huot, McIntosh’s recipe for success is made up of two elements: “unparalleled talent” and “hard work.”
She came to the Toronto High Performance Center two years ago when she was 13 years old. “Already at that time, head coach Ben Titley told me that he had rarely seen something so special. She could maintain interval streaks with extremely high tempo at such a young age and having a small physique, next to an Olympic champion like Penny,” recalls Huot.
PHOTO ANTONIO BRONIC, REUTERS
Canadian Summer McIntosh shone at the World Swimming Championships last week in Budapest, where she won four medals, including two gold.
McIntosh will have the opportunity to shine at the Paris Games in 2024 and until then she will be training with a team of swimmers who can help and inspire her to reach the greatest heights. Even if it is not the motivation that is lacking in the Torontonian.
“There are few athletes who train as hard as her. There are few athletes who want to climb on the top step of the podium as much as her,” continues Huot.
Weeks like that of the Worlds, she will relive a ton of them. On the other hand, swimmers like her, there will be very few.