McIntosh Gets Set For Summer Of Plenty With 3:59.06 Opener In 7-Event Quest At Canada’s Olympic Trials
Summer McIntosh stamped the first of many likely tickets to events at the Paris Olympic Games with a 3:59.06 win in the 400m freestyle, the opening gambit in her seven-event quest at Canadian Olympic trials in Toronto.
The 17-year-old multi-talent now has six 3:59sec career swims, today’s the swiftest of them and second best on her all-time list topped by the blistering 3:56.08 at which she held the World record between March and July last year.
In a scorching 3:55.38, Australian Olympic and World champion Ariarne Titmus retained the global title in Fukuoka a year and four days before the scheduled start of racing at the Paris Olympics.
McIntosh, 17, was fourth on that occasion but went on to show towering powers of perseverance the rest of the week in Japan, retaining World titles in a bounce-back 200m butterfly and 400m medley.
National trials for that event a year ago delivered World records in the 400m free and the 400m medley but a year and a month on, there is no need for McIntosh to show us the pace of Paris: in Canada, she might just about get away with swimming in her boots and still emerging victorious in her main events.
With no need to chuck gauntlets, a 3:59 on day 1 left McIntosh a league ahead on a podium of 2006-born peers. Julie Brousseau took silver in 4:08.12, a frustrating 0.22sec shy of the Paris qualification target, third place to Julia Strojnowska in 4:11.08. The winner now holds the fastest 12 times ever buy a Canadian.
One race down, six to go for McIntosh, for whom there’s no rest on any day at trials, including the seventh: tomorrow brings the 200m freestyle then its the 100m backstroke (Wednesday), 400m medley (Thursday), 100m freestyle (Friday), 200m butterfly (Saturday) and on Sunday the 200m medley to close the curtain on her dress rehearsal.
Women’s 100m butterfly – Macneil to defend the crown in Paris
Olympic champion Maggie Macneil will defend the 100m butterfly crown in Paris after a 56.61 victory this evening atop a podium sweep of Olympic qualifying (57.92) efforts on the clock, the second berth in Paris to Mary-Sophie Harvey in 57.31, third place to Rebecca Smith in 57.89.
Macneil’s win was a touch slower than her heats time of 56.54: on display, the art of practising what has to be as close as possible to the ‘easy speed’ required for the rounds in Paris to be the breeze before the battle.
Men’s 400m freestyle
The Paris time set of 3:46.78 was a stretch too far for the Canadian finalists, Alexander Axon the winner in 3:50.10 ahead of Eric Brown and Jeremy Bagshaw, on 3:52.27 and 3:52.87 respectively.
Men’s 100m breaststroke
The target time set at 59.49, there were no tickets takers for Paris, the winner Finlay Knox on 1:00.66 as he tests the parts of the medley sum he aims to put together later this week for a ticket to his signature events in Paris. Closest to him today were Apollo Hess, on 1:00.99, and Brayden Taivassalo, on 1:01.10.
Thank you Summer for taking the time to autograph for all the young swimmers. You really made the day even better!