By Canadian Press

Summer McIntosh leads deep Canadian swim team into world short course championship

Dec 9, 2024 | 11:47 AM

Summer McIntosh relishes swimming a race that she couldn’t squeeze into her ambitious schedule at the Olympic Games in Paris.

The reigning Olympic champion in two individual medleys and the 200-metre butterfly will take on the 200-metre backstroke in the world short course championship starting Tuesday in Budapest, Hungary.

The 18-year-old from Toronto will also compete in the 400-metre individual medley, 400-metre freestyle, 200-metre butterfly and four relays.

“I’m also really excited to do the 200 backstroke because that’s one of my favourite events that I haven’t been able to focus on this past season since, because of the Olympics. I wasn’t doing it there, so I didn’t really focus on that event individually,” McIntosh said.

McIntosh became the first Canadian to win three gold medals in a single Olympic Games, winter or summer, and also added a silver medal in the 400-metre freestyle in Paris.

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Including heats, semifinals and relays, the Canadian raced 13 times over nine days. She set Olympic records in the both the 200 medley and butterfly.

McIntosh, who trains with Florida’s Sarasota Sharks under coach Brent Arckey, holds the long-course world record in the 400-metre I.M.

The short-course championship is in a 25-metre pool instead 50 metres.

“It’s double the turns. Short course is a really good challenge for me just because I don’t have the best turns and underwater,” McIntosh said Sunday.

“I hope to show off some time and place as high as possible, but whatever that means (to) reach my full potential. I don’t exactly know where I am right now. I haven’t raced a lot since the Olympics.

“Any time I get to race on a world level, at a world championship or Olympics, it’s always really enjoyable and I learn so much about myself and it just adds to my experience going into the next world championship or Olympics.”

McIntosh was 15 years old when she claimed the first international medals of her career at the 2021 world short course in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. She was a silver medallist in the 400-metre freestyle and medley relay and a gold medallist in the 4 x 200 freestyle relay.

Canada’s swim team arrived in Budapest after an eight-medal performance in Paris.

The last major international swim meet of the 2024 season is also the first of the quadrennial leading into the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2026.

Canada’s team of eight men and 10 women also features double butterfly bronze medallist Ilya Kharun of Montreal, backstroke bronze medallist Kylie Masse of LaSalle, Ont., and Toronto’s Penny Oleksiak, who owns a career seven Olympic medals.

Kharun, who was third in the 100 and 200 fly in Paris, wants to show the work he’s put in with his Arizona State coach Herbie Behm.

“I’m really looking forward to getting a couple of gold medals at this meet,” Kharun said Monday in a Swimming Canada statement.

“I’m a little bit more confident in my power and how I swim. I’ve swum with these guys a bunch of times and I know how they swim. I’ve watched the races and I’m just excited to get it going and beat these guys.”

Canadians captured 14 medals at the 2022 world short-course championship in Melbourne, Australia. The 15 in 2021 in Abu Dhabi ranked second behind the United States.

Masse, 28, is Canada’s all-time leader in world championship medals, with nine in long course and nine in short course. Oleksiak, 24, makes her first world short course appearance since 2016.

The meet concludes Sunday when McIntosh races the 200 backstroke.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 9, 2024.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press