VICTORIA—Here at Commonwealth Place, some swimmers change outfits on the pirate ship in the empty children’s pool; there are only four rows of stands, on two sides. The place can feel cramped.
But for one swimmer, the pool is almost infinite. Summer McIntosh came to the Canadian trials for her first major, full-program, long-course meet with real intention since her four medals in Paris. She trained differently in the five months coming in, with star French coach Fred Vergnoux. She wanted to do something special.
She has, every night. For Summer, this meet has been a grand statement of intent, and she is firing a series of shots across the bow of the entire swimming world. Saturday? World record. Sunday? Less than a second from a world record and one of the great swims of all time. Monday? A different world record.
Tuesday night, the 18-year-old ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ native took aim at the most unbreakable record in women’s swimming: 2:01.81 in the 200-metre butterfly. The 200 fly was her mother Jill’s race at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and it’s Summer’s favourite. At the 2024 Olympics in Paris, Summer swam a 2:03.03, which was the second-fastest time ever recorded.
CANADIAN RECORD 🇨🇦 SUMMER MCINTOSH
— Devin Heroux (@Devin_Heroux)
2:02.26
It’s the second-fastest time in history. Absolutely flying, and just behind the world record time of 2:01.81. Here’s her mom, Jill, cheering her daughter on after yet another remarkable performance.
But the gap between that and the record, set by Chinese swimmer Liu Zige in 2009, was a canyon. It wasn’t just the since-banned supersuit era. Liu was almost completely unknown before winning gold at the Beijing Olympics in a world-record time of 2:04.18, with fellow unknown Jiao Liuyang finishing second and almost as fast. In 2009, Liu swam that literally unbelievable 2:01.81 at the Chinese national games.
“Those are the two untouchables: the 200 fly and the 800 free,†says CBC swimming commentator and University of ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ head coach Byron MacDonald.
“It will be challenging,†said Vergnoux before the race.
After 50 metres, Summer was nine-hundredths of a second off the pace. After 100, 0.58 seconds. With 50 metres to go, suddenly Summer was one-hundredth of a second ahead of world-record pace. As with her 800 swim, for a moment it felt like impossible was possible.
She fell just short. Summer swam 2:02.26, the second-fastest time in history and 0.45 seconds off the record. That she can even approach the sport’s most untouchable records at 18 is astonishing; that she might yet break them tells you who she is.
“I actually think I rate this race, or rank this race higher than some of my other ones,†said Summer. “That’s the one world record that I never thought I would even come close to. I would talk about it a year ago like, wow. Like, that is out of this world fast. So now to be pretty close to it is pretty wild. So overall, happy.â€
She was upset with her finish — she felt her stroke was mistimed and it cost her 0.1 or 0.2 seconds. She talked about tightening up her turns and underwater kick, and her start was the slowest in the race. She called it her second-favourite race of the week.
Summer is reaching for the sky here, or beyond. Her last five months with Vergnoux involved training for longer distances and he was amazed at her work rate, and her focus. Vergnoux emphasizes happy swimmers, and loves to challenge them. The time included cycling, cross-country skiing (“It was new for her, but she sees that as something fun, a new way of improving,†says Vergnoux), blue-sky thinking and altitude training at the French national training centre at Font-Romeu, including three weeks that ended 17 days ago. In his view, this is her ideal performance window.
The 800 free isn’t her specialty but McIntosh has the third-fastest time in history in the event dominated by U.S. swim queen Katie Ledecky.
The 800 free isn’t her specialty but McIntosh has the third-fastest time in history in the event dominated by U.S. swim queen Katie Ledecky.
“It’s the perfection,†Vergnoux said on Sunday. “What we talked about with Summer is that when you are in good shape, there’s the window of opportunity where you can race during many days in a very, very high level.
“You could see (Summer) getting better and better and better: physically, mentally, strength in the gym, the skills, dive, turn, everything. You can see it coming.â€
This meet has been both stunning and unsurprising, if you realize what Summer can be. Saturday, she broke the world record in the 400 freestyle by a stunning 1.15 seconds. Sunday, in her fourth attempt at the race in a major meet, she came within a second of breaking Katie Ledecky’s towering record in the 800 free. Monday, she broke Katinka Hosszú’s 10-year-old record in the 200 individual medley, swimming 2:05.70 to Hosszú’s 2:06.12. The last world records set in this building were at the 2006 Pan Pacific championships, in the 200 fly and 200 IM. They were set by Michael Phelps.
Ledecky is surely paying attention; everyone should be. Summer will swim the 400 IM Wednesday, in which she already holds the world record, and it seems inevitable that another record will fall. This is true greatness and endless promise, unfolding one race at a time.
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