Summer McIntosh leads Canada’s first day medal haul at the World Aquatics Swimming Championships

No one has forgotten the “Summer of Summer”, which saw teenage swimming phenom Summer McIntosh collect three gold medals and one silver medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The now-18-year-old is showing that it can also be the “Winter of Summer”, as she took to the pool for her first major race since Paris 2024. McIntosh swam to gold in the women’s 400m freestyle at the World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25m) in Budapest, Hungary, setting a new world record time of 3:50.25. McIntosh was the silver medallist in the women’s 400m freestyle at Paris 2024, which took place in a 50m pool.

She shared the podium in the event with teammate Mary-Sophie Harvey, who won bronze for her first individual medal at a global championship.

Less than two hours later, McIntosh and Harvey were both back on the podium as Team Canada finished off day one of the meet with a bronze in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay in a time of 3:28.44. The Canadian quartet for the finals consisted of Harvey, McIntosh, Ingrid Wilm and Penny Oleksiak. Team USA won the gold medal with a world record of 3:25.01. Team Australia finished second, 0.19 of a second ahead of the Canadians.

The Canadians weren’t even certain they were going to field a team in the relay, with many of the swimmers carrying heavy racing loads. Wilm is best known as a backstroke specialist. Sydney Pickrem and Alexanne Lepage competed in the relay heats earlier in the session in support of Harvey and McIntosh.

Also reaching the podium was another Paris 2024 Olympian, Finlay Knox, who took bronze in the men’s 200m IM. He missed the silver by a mere two-one hundredths of a second. In the race just before that, Harvey swam to fourth place in the women’s 200m IM.

Competition continues at the short course world championships through Sunday.