Summer McIntosh, a 19-year-old, broke the longest-standing individual women’s swimming world record on Sunday night.
McIntosh completed the 200-meter butterfly in 2 minutes 1.65 seconds at the Canadian trials. The record was previously set by China’s Liu Zige in 2009 during the so-called super-suite era. Zige had completed the swim in 2:01:81.
McIntosh has already won three medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Zige’s record has been on the horizon for a long time, coming within 0.18 seconds of it with a time of 2:01.99 last year at the World Championships.
“That was the one world record that I’ve always dreamt of as a kid,” McIntosh said. “To now do it is really incredible.”
“I could tell on the last 50 that I must have been close to the world record just based off how loud the crowd was,” said McIntosh, who finished 8.5 seconds ahead of runner-up Mary-Sophie Harvey. “That really kept me going and motivated me to get to the wall.”
On Sunday, it was an opportunity for many Canadian fans to see McIntosh compete since her high-profile move to train in Austin, Texas, under Bob Bowman, the coach who guided Michael Phelps to a record 23 Olympic gold medals.
“It’s always special,” Bowman said. “They’re very few and far between, even with swimmers like Summer. It’s hard to get there. It’s fun to see her start the meet off that way. I think she’ll have some other good events as well, so it should be fun.”
The 19-year-old will compete in the 400 IM on Monday, the 400 free on Tuesday and the 200 IM on Wednesday ahead of the Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine, California.
