BY KRISHNA MISTRY
Summer McIntosh, a talented seventeen-year-old Canadian athlete, has been awarded the Bobbie Rosenfeld – 2023 Canadian Press Athlete of the Year. This is awarded to female athletes who make their country proud. Over her career, McIntosh has won: seven gold medals, six silver medals and four bronze medals.
She has been awarded two gold medals in the two-hundred-meter butterfly, and four-hundred-meter individual medley, and two bronze medals in the two-hundred-meter freestyle and four x hundred-meter freestyle at the Worlds’ Aquatic Championship, which was held in Fukuoka, Japan, in July 2023.
The World’s Aquatic Championship is where athletes from all over the world compete in swimming, diving, open water swimming, artistic swimming and water polo. As a result of her performance at the competition, McIntosh became the world’s youngest Canadian to win a gold medal at the World’s Aquatic Championship.
The first gold medal she won was in the two-hundred-meter butterfly event. McIntosh dominated the race in the two-hundred-meter butterfly, where she went against swimmers from: the United States of America, Australia, Japan, Denmark, Great Britain and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In an interview, McIntosh says “I was just trying to have the most fun as possible, kind of race as hard as I could, and try to hold on to the second half, it’s so hard in the two-hundred-meter fly. Overall, I’m happy with what I accomplished tonight. I think the two-hundred-meter fly is all about being fearless.”
McIntosh showed that fearlessness throughout the race, which also led to her breaking a world junior record by one second, and now holds a record of two minutes and four seconds in the two-hundred-meter butterfly.
The gold medal she received for the four-hundred-meter individual medley event was crucial for McIntosh. She had previously broken the world record in this event and had to defend her world champion title in the series.
In this event, a swimmer swims the butterfly stroke, the backstroke, the breaststroke and the front stroke. Throughout the race, McIntosh was in the lead and was efficiently swimming the: butterfly and backstroke, until it came to breaststroke.
Previous swim meets observed that McIntosh was weakest when it came to breaststroke. She has limited experience in this form as she mainly competes in the four-hundred-meter freestyle. Still, she proved everyone wrong during this race when she did an outstanding job staying in the lead and smoothly reaching the finish line with a time of four minutes and twenty-seven seconds.
McIntosh also set a new record in the four-hundred-meter freestyle at the Bell Canadian Swimming Trial with a time of three minutes and fifty-six seconds. A seven-year-long record which was previously held by Katinka Hosszú’s – Hungary, at three minutes and fifty-five seconds has been broken.
The young Canadian had done it again and is now one of the fewest world record holders in swimming.
On November 30th, McIntosh won a gold medal in the four-hundred-meter freestyle event at the U.S. Opens Swimming Championship. In this race, McIntosh had strong competitors, such as Katie Ledecky. Ledecky is a US swimmer with six Olympic gold medals and holds fourteen long-course world records. It was an opportunity for McIntosh to get back out there and swim against Ledecky after her performance last year, where she came fourth overall.
It was an overwhelming race, as McIntosh and Ledecky were going head-to-head, but McIntosh snuck past Ledecky and beat her by three whole seconds, and she still holds the record with three minutes and fifty-six seconds in this event.
Overall, McIntosh had a magnificent season, which led her to winning the Canadian Press Athlete of the Year and representing Canada with pride.
McIntosh will be preparing for the upcoming Olympics in Paris, France, where she will be competing against many talented swimmers from all around the world. Events McIntosh may compete in include:
- Two-hundred-meter butterfly
- Two-hundred-meter individual medley
- Four-hundred-meter individual medley
- Four-hundred-meter freestyle
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