Canada’s Summer McIntosh breaks 400m medley world record for third mark in five days
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Summer McIntosh bagged her third world record in days on June 11, clocking 4min 23.65sec to better her own 400m medley record at the Canadian Swimming Trials in Victoria.
PHOTO: REUTERS
MONTREAL – World records “are made to be broken” – those were the wise words from a young but thoroughly exciting Canadian swimmer this week.
Summer McIntosh bagged her third world mark in five days on June 11, clocking 4min 23.65sec to better her own 400m individual medley record at the Canadian Swimming Trials in Victoria.
The 18-year-old prodigy, already a triple Olympic champion, laid down another impressive marker with a dominant performance ahead of the World Championships in Singapore in July.
McIntosh’s blistering time beat her old mark of 4:24.38 set in Toronto in May 2024 at the Canadian Olympic trials.
Her assault on her own world record got off to a smooth start, with the teenager completing the opening butterfly leg in world-record pace.
She was more than a second ahead of the world mark at the halfway stage, and although that margin dropped to one-tenth of a second after the breaststroke, she produced an electrifying freestyle down the stretch to complete a 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 said afterwards in a pool deck 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.
“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.”
Her June 11 record-breaking display was the latest entry to an impressive performance catalogue she produced in British Columbia.
On June 7, she smashed the 400m freestyle record, slicing more than a second off Australian star Ariarne Titmus’ world best from 2023.
She then clocked the third-fastest 800m freestyle in history on June 8, before diving back into the pool on June 9 to obliterate Hungarian great Katinka Hosszu’s decade-old 200m medley world record.
McIntosh, who won golds in the 200m butterfly, 200m individual medley and 400m IM at last summer’s Paris Olympics, will now compete at the July 11-Aug 3 World Championships aiming to add to her collection of four world championship titles. AFP
