Summer McIntosh wasted no time putting her stamp on the 2023 Canadian Swimming Trials in Toronto.
Entering the meet as a four-time Junior World Record holder, the 16-year-old Toronto native set her first senior world standard on opening night, clocking 3:56.08 in the women’s 400m freestyle. That bettered the previous mark of 3:56.40 set last May by reigning Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus of Australia.
It was the first long-course world record by a Canadian since Kylie Masse in the 100m backstroke at the World Aquatics Championships - Budapest 2017.
With the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre crowd on its feet from start to finish, McIntosh shaved off more than three seconds from her previous national mark of 3:59.32 set at last year's Commonwealth Games where McIntosh finished second to Titmus.
“Honestly, going into tonight, I didn’t think the world record was a possibility but you never know,” said McIntosh, who broke onto the international scene at the Tokyo 2020 Games when she finished fourth in the 400m free in her Olympic debut as a 14-year old. “I’m so grateful for my coach and everyone that’s helped me along the way to get to where I am today.”
“Honestly, going into tonight, I didn’t think the world record was a possibility but you never know.”
The Etobicoke Swim Club product recently relocated to Florida to train with the Sarasota Sharks under Brent Arckey.
“Whenever I get the chance to compete at one of my home pools, where I trained for two years, and to compete in Canada there’s always that extra little bit left in my races to finish and make them proud,” said McIntosh, who began breaking into tears as she prepared to talk about her family. “Thank you for everything, it means the world to me and I love you guys.
“Over the past few years, I've put my life into this. To be the best I can be. 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.”
McIntosh wasn’t the only Canadian teenager to qualify for the World Aquatics Championships in the women’s 400 free. Ella Jansen, a 17-year-old from Burlington, Ont. qualified for her first worlds thanks to a time of 4:08.81. She represented Canada at the Commonwealth Games last August.
Ariarne Titmus Reacts to McIntosh Resetting the 400m Freestyle World Record | "A bit of extra fire in the belly"
Double Olympic and World Aquatics Championship gold medallist Ariarne Titmus of Australia said it was a "tough pill to swallow" as she watched her 400m World Record fall this week while at an intense training camp in Thailand with her coach Dean Boxall.
But all-in-all, the 22-year-old sounded upbeat in an interview with Channel 9 Sports about the growing Galacticos-like rivalry between the Aussie, Canadian and Team USA's Katie Ledecky in the freestyle swimming events with an epic clash on the horizon in just over 100 days in Fukuoka, Japan for the World Aquatics Championships.
"This week, certainly having your own world record broken is a tough pill to swallow. But I think you have to look at the good in everything, and it's probably a good thing it was broken now, it gives me a bit of extra fire in the belly. It's naïve to think that the world of swimming is just going to stop. It's exciting for our sport, it's exciting for the 400m freestyle, I think the match-up between Summer, Katie, and I is going to be as strong as ever."