Canadian teenager Summer McIntosh on Tuesday clocked 3 minutes, 56.08 seconds to break the women’s 400m freestyle world record at the Bell Canadian Swimming Trials in Toronto.
The 16-year-old broke the previous record of 3:56.40 set in May last year by Ariarne Titmus at the Australian Swimming Championships in Adelaide — where the Aussie broke American Katie Ledecky’s six-year-old world mark of 3:56.46 set at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Coming into the meet — Canada’s selection for the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, in July — McIntosh was the fourth-fastest performer ever in the event behind Titmus, Ledecky and Italian Federica Pellegrini.
Photo: AFP
She last year clocked 3:59.32 to finish second to Titmus at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England.
McIntosh was also the silver medalist behind Ledecky at the World Aquatics Championships in Budapest last year, when she broke the four-minute barrier for the first time in the event.
She won gold in the 200m butterfly and 400m medley in Budapest.
Her record is the first long-course world record by a Canadian since Kylie Masse in the 100m backstroke at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships, which was also in Budapest.
“Honestly, going into tonight, I didn’t think the world record was a possibility, but you never know,” said McIntosh, who broke onto the international scene at the Tokyo Olympics when — as a 14-year-old — she finished fourth in the 400m free in her Olympic debut.
McIntosh, who recently relocated to Florida to train, said she always feels extra motivated when competing in Canada, breaking into tears as she spoke about her family.
“Over the past few years I’ve put my life into this,” she said. “To be the best I can be. To achieve something like this, it was very unexpected. It was never in my dreams to do this tonight or even a few years ago. This just blows my mind.”
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