Summer McIntosh wins 2024 Northern Star Award as Canada's top athlete
McIntosh's incredible year was highlighted by four Olympic medals in Paris.
Summer McIntosh was named the winner of the 2024 Northern Star Award on Tuesday, voted Canada's top athlete of the year by members of the media.
McIntosh was one of the swimming superstars at the Olympics in Paris, winning four medals. Still 17 at the time, now 18, McIntosh won Canada’s first medal of the Games with a silver in the women’s 400m freestyle. She followed up her first Olympic medal with three golds — in the 400m individual medley, 200m butterfly, and 200m individual medley. She set Olympic records in the latter two events, and won the 400IM by almost six seconds.
McIntosh also took part in three relays in Paris, finishing fourth in each of them, close to adding even more hardware to the collection. Before the Olympics, she broke her own world record in the 400m individual medley at the Canadian trials.
She is the ninth swimmer to win the award, and first since 2016 when Penny Oleksiak won after a four-medal Olympic performance of her own in Rio de Janeiro. They share the record for most medals by a Canadian at one Olympics, but McIntosh was the first Canadian ever to win three golds in the same year.
Like Oleksiak in 2016, McIntosh was Canada’s flag bearer for the Olympic closing ceremony, alongside hammer throw champion Ethan Katzberg.
McIntosh learned that she won the award on Tuesday in Budapest, where she is competing with Team Canada at the short course world championships. Earlier in the day she set a new world record in the 400m freestyle final, before helping Canada take bronze in the women’s 4x100m freestyle for he second medal of the day. There are still several days of competition left for McIntosh to add to her incredible 2024 haul.
The other four finalists under consideration by the panel of media voters were Katzberg, NBA superstar and 2023 winner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, PWHL MVP Natalie Spooner, and Stanley Cup playoffs MVP Connor McDavid.
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