Summer-Time Measured In A Scorching 4:24.38 World Record From Mesmerising McIntosh
Summer McIntosh had already thrilled the home crowd at Olympic Trials in Toronto this week but tonight she mesmerised them and the rest of World swimming with a scorching 4:24.38 World record in the 400m medley.
The ticket to the Paris Olympics was a foregone conclusion for the 17-year-old, who set the global standard at 4:25.87 last year on her way to retaining the World title in Fukuoka after her first triumph at 15 in Budapest in 2022.
McIntosh’s 4:24.38 is phenomenal, a testament not only to her sensational spectrum of talent, discipline, determination and dedication, the home, family and team support she’s enjoyed but the smart work of coach Brent Arckey and experts like Vern Gambetta working with athlete and head coach at the Sarasota Sharks in Florida.
A 3:59 in the 400m free, then a 1:53 in the 200m free on the first two days of competition are now bathed in the perspective of a day 4 world record of 4:24.38 in the 400m medley for Paris ticket No 4, along with the 4x200m free … so far. There’s more to come before Sunday’s curtain-closer in the 200IM.
The tweets rolled after the record, Gambetta noting: “So cool to be here to [see] it. This young lady is very special!”
After setting out 0.29sec swifter on ‘fly than a year ago, Summer was 0.4sec slower on backstroke. Then we saw where the big gain has come from: 1.79 faster on breaststroke, up from 1:18.92 in the same pool a year ago to a 1:17.13. McIntosh then weathered the freestyle in 1:00.95, 0.39sec down on her finishing pace a year ago.
Let’s get the red threads to blokes and history out of the way before we get to the ebb and flow of this day:
- How fast is Summer travelling? Well, Rod Strachan claimed the Olympic gold for men in 4:23.68 at the Montreal 1976. McIntosh is now swifter than all the other men who held a World 400IM record before him since the global standard came into being for the long medley in long-course metres in 1957.
- Is she the fastest finisher ever among women? No. That’s Ye Shiwen and her 58.68 from London 2012: it made headlines around the world the day after The Times reported it as the first moment in Olympic swimming history when a woman covered the closing stages of a swimming final as fast as her male peers.
The fastest 400IM ever: 59.18 (31.63) 1:33.31 (34.13) 2:06.30 (32.99) 2:44.22 (37.92) 3:23.43 (39.21) 3:54.66 (31.23) 4:24.38 (29.72)
The splits compared:
- 59.18 (31.63) 2:06.30 (1:07.32) 3:23.43 (1:17.13) 4:24.38 (1:00.95) Summer McIntosh WR Toronto 2024
- 59.47 (31.65) 2:06.39 (1:06.92) 3:25.31 (1:18.92) 4:25.87 (1:00.56) Summer McIntosh WR Toronto 2023
- 1:00.91; 2:08.39 (1:07.48) 3:24.50 (1:16.11) 4:26.36 (1:01.86) Katinka Hosszu WR Rio 2016 Gold
- 1:02.19; 2:11.73 (1:09.54) 3:29.75 (1:18.02 ) 4:28.43 (58.68) Ye Shiwen WR London 2012 Gold
Here’s another perspective through the timewarp:
Summer McIntosh’s splits were:
- Faster than Mary T. Meagher’s first World 100 ‘fly record in 1980 – and 0.18sec shy of the first sub-minute by a man, Lance Larson, in 1960
- Faster than the World record set by Cathy Ferguson for Olympic 100m back gold in 1964
- Faster than the World record set by Claudia Kolb in the 100m breaststroke in 1964
- Faster than the first four of Dawn Fraser’s nine 100m freestyle world records
Ella Jansen finished just out the cut in second on 4:38.88 but is likely to be in Paris and eligible for the long medley alongside Torontonian McIntosh, who said she wasn’t focussed on the record but thanked the crowd for helping take it down:
“I was really just focusing on having fun with the race and kind of taking it 100 metres at a time because it’s a pretty mentally challenging race. I wasn’t really focused on the time. I mean, obviously, I’m very grateful that I was able to break my world record. Overall I’m really happy.
“With so many Canadians in the stands, I can feel their support and I can hear them cheering during my race and it really keeps me going. I mean, if they weren’t there, I don’t think I would have the 4:25 world record in the first place, let alone this one tonight. Whenever I get to race in front of a big crowd, I think it really gives me a lift. Just that complete adrenaline rush is awesome.”
Summer McIntosh – Photo: ready to fire – by Ian McNicol
McIntosh became the first Canadian woman ever to hold the 400IM World record last year and is now the first to set out twice – and the first Canadian of either sex to hold it twice since Alex Baumann achieved that feat in 1984.
Summer is also the first woman to set the standard with successive records since 1982, when Petra Schneider, an East German who took her coach and others to court, set the last of her four world records. She later took her sporting guardians to court ion Germany’s doping trials in the late 1990s and they were found guilty of bodily harm to minors after it was confirmed that Schneider had been doped.
She was one of many victims who prospered in sport but not in long-term health because of State Research Plan 14:25, the GDR systematic doping program that is estimated to have plied some 15,000 athletes with steroids and other substances for some two decades until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Read more about that and many related matters in Unfair Play by the silver medallist and first home with a clean record behind Schneider at Moscow 1980, Sharron Davies, and me: the paperback is out in July with an update chapter one year on from the launch of the hardback.
Summer McIntosh Two In A Row – World Record Progression Since 2000:
And a reminder of when the best blokes were pressing the same pace as 17-year-old summer in bygone seasons:
Again, worth catching up with this feature if you haven’t already read it:
The McIntosh sisters lean on family to reach their Olympic-sized potential: A behind-the-scenes look at the lives of teens Brooke and Summer, who are already turning heads in their respective sports – By Devin Heroux, CBC Sports