Summer McIntosh the star of Canadian swimming trials as over a dozen records fall
Plus: Canada's World Aquatics Championships team has been revealed
Summer McIntosh continued her emergence as one of the best swimmers in the world this past week at the Canadian National Trials, setting several records in what was one of the most impressive swim meets ever.
The 16-year-old Torontonian competed in five events at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre, and won the gold medal while setting world junior and Canadian records in all five of them.
If that wasn’t impressive enough, she set the world records in two of those events, with the fastest time ever in the women’s 400m freestyle and 400m individual medley. She is the first swimmer to ever hold both of those 400m records at the same time.
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McIntosh came into the Canadian National Trials with four junior world records, seemingly lowering them every time she dove into the pool. In Toronto, she took down worlds records held by two of the best swimmers on the planet — Ariarne Titmus and Katinka Hosszu, now establishing herself among the world’s elite, if she hadn’t already.
McIntosh’s first world record came on the first day of competition, in the 400m freestyle on Tuesday. McIntosh sprinted to a time of 3:56.08 — more than three seconds faster than her previous Canadian best, and shaving more than three tenths of a second off Ariarne Titmus’ previous record of 3:56.40, set last year by the reigning Olympic champion in the event.
McIntosh finished fourth in the 400m freestyle event at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics as a 14-year-old — which already turned heads in itself — so a rematch between McIntosh, Titmus and other top international swimmers next year in Paris is an even more exciting prospect.
Another exciting young Canadian talent, 17-year-old Ella Jansen, impressed across the meet, and qualified for her first world championships with a time of 4:12.20 in the event.
Day two of the trials featured three Canadian records as the momentum continued. Twenty-year-old Josh Liendo set the 100-m butterfly national record twice in the same day, lowering his own national mark in the morning qualifiers, before doing so again in the final — racing to a time of 50.36, the fifth-fastest time ever in the event, and the fastest this year.
Liendo was recently named the Canadian Male Swimmer of the Year, with McIntosh taking the Female Swimmer of the Year honour.
Javier Acevedo also set a Canadian record, in the 50m backstroke with a time of 24.90, 0.07 seconds faster than his previous mark. Maggie Mac Neil didn’t set any records with her 56.54 time in the women’s 50m butterfly, but the Olympic champion did set the best time in the world this year in the event.
McIntosh was back in the pool for day three on Thursday, and again set new Canadian and world junior records, this time in the 200m individual medley with a time of 2:06.89. That was the fourth-fastest time ever in the event, and agonizingly close to Katinka Hosszu’s world record of 2:06.12, a time that feels within reach for McIntosh in the future.
In the men’s 200m IM, Finlay Knox lowered his own Canadian record with a time of 1:57.26, while Paralympian Shelby Newkirk also beat a record of her own, setting the new Canadian standard with a time of 1:14.52 in the S6 100m freestyle.
Newkirk holds several Canadian records in that para swimming class, and was one of several Canadians to qualify for the Para Swimming World Championships in July and August.
On Friday, McIntosh again stole the headlines with a Canadian and world junior record in the 200m butterfly in a time of 2:04.70, lowering her own record set earlier in March.
A trio of para swimmers set national records as well on Friday. Newkirk set her second S6 Canadian record of the meet, touching the wall in 33.36 seconds in the women’s multi-class 50m freestyle final. In the preliminaries for that event in the morning, Alisson Gobeil raced to a time of 43.23 seconds, a new Canadian record in the S5 classification.
Katie Cosgriffe swam the women’s multi-class 100m butterfly preliminary in 1:08.68, a new Canadian record in the S10 category.
Saturday was again the Summer McIntosh show in Toronto, with the teenage phenom setting her second world record of the meet. McIntosh won the women’s 400m individual medley in 4:25.87, breaking the record set by the great Hungarian swimmer Katinka Hosszu at the 2016 Olympics when she was at the height of her career.
McIntosh won the event at the 2022 world championships and 2022 Commonwealth Games, and now stands atop the list of the fastest female swimmers ever in the event — saying afterwards that she’s wanted this crown since she was 11 years old.
With her second world record of the week, McIntosh became the first person to ever hold long-course world records in both the 400m IM and 400m freestyle — and the first Canadian woman since Elaine Tanner in 1967 to hold two long course records at the same time.
Two more Canadian records were set on Saturday as well.
Tyson Jacob set a new record in the men’s 200m IM, finishing in 4:00.92, breaking a nine-year-old record. Para swimmer Alisson Gobeil set her second S5 record of the meet with a time of 4:36.67 in the morning qualifiers for the women’s 200 IM, beating Hannah Ouellette’s 4:37.73 in March by more than a second.
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The Canadian National Trials came to an end on Sunday evening, and not without some more excitement.
Summer McIntosh set another Canadian and junior world record in the 200m freestyle in a time of 1:53.91, moving her within a second of Federica Pellegrini’s world record (1:52.98), one that the Italian has held since 2009.
McIntosh looked fatigued after a busy week, but still won convincingly.
Josh Liendo was also back in the water on Sunday and broke an eight-year-old Canadian record in the men’s 50m butterfly. He did so in 23.27 seconds, three hundredths of a second quicker than Santo Condorelli did in 2015.
Hunter Helberg lowered his own Canadian S12 record in the 100m backstroke, doing so in 1:15.57, over a second faster than his previous best time in December (1:16.94).
In total, 17 Canadian records were set over the six days — nine from the Olympic program swimmers, and eight from the Paralympic program. Summer McIntosh set five female Canadian and junior world records, including the two world records, in what was one of the best meets by any swimmer ever.
Shelby Newkirk and Alisson Gobeil led the way in the Paralympic program with two Canadian records each. Nine age-group records were also broken with 14-year-old Laon Kim setting four.
The Golden Generation of Canadian swimming is in full swing. Two of Canada’s top athletes, Penny Oleksiak and Taylor Ruck, weren’t even competing this week, either.
Oleksiak, who is recovering from an injury, and Ruck, who skipped the trials to rest after competing in the NCAA championships recently, were both named to the World Championships roster on Sunday night, however.
The full Canadian roster for worlds — set to take place in Fukuoka, Japan in July — was finalized after this record-breaking week in the pool, and includes all of the names you’d expect to see — McIntosh, Liendo, Oleksiak, Ruck, Maggie Mac Neil, Kylie Masse, as well as another rising star Ilya Kharun, and 24 others.
It is arguably Canada’s most competitive team ever, and they will look to continue the country’s momentum in the pool after winning 11 medals at the 2022 competition — their most ever.
The World Junior Swimming Championships and Pan American Games teams will be named next week, and the World Para Swimming Championships team will be named at a later date, according to Swimming Canada.
Canada’s full World Championships roster:
Javier Acevedo (Toronto, ON), Sophie Angus (Weston, Connecticut, USA), Jeremy Bagshaw (Victoria, B.C.), Eric Brown (Pointe-Claire, QC), James Dergousoff (Christina Lake, B.C.), Brooklyn Douthwright (Riverview, N.B.), Emma Finlin (Mississauga, ON), Edouard Fullum-Huot (Montreal, QC), Ruslan Gaziev (Moscow, Russia), Collyn Gagne (Milton, ON), Mary-Sophie Harvey (Trois-Rivières, QC), Hanna Henderson (Mississauga, ON), Patrick Hussey (Montreal, QC), Ella Jansen (Burlington, ON), Ilya Kharun (Montreal, QC), Finlay Knox (Okotoks, AB), Josh Liendo (Markham, ON), Maggie Mac Neil (London, ON), Kylie Masse (LaSalle, ON), Summer McIntosh (Toronto, ON), Hugh McNeill (Langley, B.C.), Emma O'Croinin (Edmonton, AB), Penny Oleksiak (Toronto, ON), Sydney Pickrem (Clearwater, Florida, USA), Taylor Ruck (Kelowna, B.C.), Katerine Savard (Pont-Rouge, QC) Brayden Taivassalo (Markham, ON), Lorne Wigginton (Calgary, AB), Ingrid Wilm (Norwich, England), Kelsey Wog (Winnipeg, MB), Mabel Zavaros (Burlington, ON).
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