Summer McIntosh, the 16-year-old swimming prodigy from Canada, just set a new world record in the women’s 400m meter freestyle category on Tuesday.
At the ongoing Canadian swimming trials taking place at the Pan Am Sports Centre in Toronto, the teenage swimmer clocked 3 minutes and 56.08 seconds, breaking the previous world record of 3 minutes and 56.40 seconds set by the reigning Olympic champion, Ariarne Titmus, and also improved on her own earlier personal best of 3 minutes and 59.32 seconds.
With this feat, McIntosh becomes the first swimmer from Canada to set a new world record in the last five years. The last time a Canadian swimmer set a world record was back in 2017 when Kylie Masse set a new benchmark at the 100m backstroke at the World Championships in Budapest that year.
“Over the past few years I’ve put my life into this,” said McIntosh, who finished fourth in the 400 free in her Olympic debut at Tokyo as a 14-year-old. “To achieve something like this, it was very unexpected. It was never in my dreams to do this tonight or even a few years ago. This just blows my mind.”
The Canadian trials will select swimmers for the upcoming Worlds in Fukuoka, Japan, followed by the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile. With McIntosh having earned her berth at the two international events, she will face off against Titmus as well as American swimming ace and former world record holder Katie Ledecky.
(more to follow)
