Summer McIntosh set her third world record in a matter of days on Wednesday, clocking an astonishing 4 minutes 23.65 seconds in the 400-meter medley at the Canadian Swimming Trials in Victoria, surpassing her own previous record. The 18-year-old Canadian phenom, already a three-time Olympic gold medalist, delivered another remarkable performance, setting an impressive benchmark ahead of next month’s World Championships in Singapore.
McIntosh’s scorching time eclipsed her prior record of 4:24.38, which she had established in Toronto last May at the Canadian Olympic trials.
McIntosh’s pursuit of her own world record began smoothly, with the teenager completing the opening butterfly leg at a world-record pace. She maintained a lead of more than a second over the world record mark at the halfway point. Although this advantage narrowed to just one-tenth of a second after the breaststroke leg, she unleashed an electrifying freestyle burst in the final stretch to conclude a truly scintillating performance.
“Going into tonight, I knew I could do something really special because this has probably been the best meet of my career,” McIntosh stated afterward in a poolside interview. “World records are made to be broken. So by the time I leave this sport, I want to make sure that that record is as fast as possible.” She added, “That really keeps me going, because I know there’s always going to be the next generation of kids growing up, and they’re going to be chasing the record. So I’ve gotta give them my best effort to see how long it can stand.”
Wednesday’s record-breaking display was the latest addition to an already impressive catalog of performances she has delivered this week in British Columbia. On Saturday, she shattered the women’s 400m freestyle record, cutting more than a second off Australian star Ariarne Titmus’s world-best time from 2023. She then posted the third-fastest 800m freestyle in history on Sunday, before returning to the pool on Monday to obliterate Hungarian great Katinka Hosszu’s decade-old 200m medley world record.
McIntosh, who earned gold medals in the 200m butterfly, 200m medley, and 400m medley at last year’s Paris Olympics, will now set her sights on next month’s World Championships, aiming to expand her collection of four world championship gold medals.
