Paris 2024 Olympics: Just shy of her 18th birthday, swimming sensation Summer McIntosh continues her incredible rise
Never meet your idols, they say.
But as Canada’s swimming prodigy Summer McIntosh stared across at Katie Ledecky on the podium of the women’s 400m freestyle race on Day 1 of the Olympic Games Paris 2024, she might have allowed herself a small smile at not only meeting her idol but beating her to silver on the greatest sporting stage of all.
McIntosh famously had a poster of Ledecky on her wall as a youngster growing up in Canada. Now, just weeks before her 18th birthday, she is racing side-by-side with the seven-time Olympic gold medallist and hoping to write her own chapter of Olympic history.
Summer McIntosh: A rare talent with an unwavering drive to succeed
At eight years old, McIntosh had a decision to make: would she follow her figure skating older sister Brook to the ice or her Olympian mother Jill into the pool?
“I’m glad I decided to focus on swimming because I think I’d be too tall for figure skating,” she said in an interview with Air Canada’s enRoute in the lead-up to the Paris 2024 Games.
After choosing swimming, not least because “whoever gets their hand on the wall first wins”, McIntosh took the first strokes in a jaw-dropping journey in the sport.
By 14 she beat Canadian legend Penny Oleksiak at the Olympic trials to book her place on the Canadian Olympic team. Just a few short months later, she was competing at Tokyo 2020 as the youngest Canadian at the Games, where she finished fourth in the 400m freestyle.
It was a far cry from how most teenagers were spending their summer but for McIntosh, the grind it takes to make it in sport has become part of her very makeup.
“Motivation isn’t something that you always have every single day,” she said in an interview with The Athletic. “It comes in waves. But I always have that discipline, no matter how I feel when I wake up, I get to the pool and I try my hardest.”
The rise and rise of Summer McIntosh
Entering these Games in Paris, McIntosh’s rise has been a joy to watch. The 17-year-old is the world record holder in the 400m IM, an event in which she will compete on the evening of 29 July as she aims for her first Olympic gold having snagged silver in the 400m freestyle on Day 1 of the Games.
However, she’s not just a different swimmer as she aims for glory in three more individual swimming events at Paris La Defense Arena. As she told Olympics.com in an interview prior to the Games, she’s also a different person.
“I think I've grown so much as a person and a swimmer these past few years, just because I've had so many amazing experiences in and out of swimming when it comes to being able to travel the world with my teammates, going through high school and meeting so many new people, and moving down to Florida,” she said.“I’ve become more mature and I’m well-versed in experiences, and how to manage the day-to-day training along with big meets and being able to compete at the world stage and being able to manage all the things that come with that as well as possible.”
400m IM: the must-watch swimming event at Paris 2024?
Paris 2024 has already seen more than its fair share of excitement in the 400m IM. In the men’s final, France’s new hero, Leon Marchand sent fans into a state of rapture with his stunning gold medal on Sunday 28 July.
At 22 years old, Marchand is at the beginning of what has the makings of a legendary career in the pool. McIntosh, of course, is five years his junior.
Of the current crop of swimmers in the event, McIntosh looks to be out in a league of her own with the two fastest times in history over the distance.
But Paris 2024 gold, battled for under the bright lights of an Olympic arena with a raucous crowd in attendance? You’d be forgiven for thinking that might set the teenaged McIntosh’s nerves jangling.
“I'll just deal with it just like any other meet,” McIntosh told Olympics.com. “The pool isn’t 55m, it’s still 50m long. And I train as hard as I can every single day to execute as best as possible. So that's all I can really do in the end.
"And along with enjoying the process and having fun with it, and just doing my best in all my races is really what I'm focusing on, and keeping all the outside noise on the outside.”