Summer McIntosh

Childhood and Family

Summer McIntosh comes from a sporting family. She is the youngest of two children of Jill Horstead and Greg McIntosh. Horstead represented Canada at the 1984 Olympic Summer Games, where she finished ninth in the women’s 200 m butterfly. She then won a bronze medal in that event at the 1986 Commonwealth Games. Summer’s older sister, Brooke, is a high-performance pairs figure skater.

Summer started swimming at age eight. When she was nine years old, she had the opportunity to watch the 2016 Canadian Olympic Swimming Trials in her native city of Toronto up close from the pool deck. By that time, she wanted to follow in her mother’s path and be a high-performance swimmer.

At the age of 10, Summer joined the Etobicoke Swim Club. It did not take long for Swimming Canada coach Ryan Mallette to like what he saw. He noticed that McIntosh was quite aggressive in the water and made swimmers around her better.

First Breakthrough Events

At the age of 12, Summer McIntosh competed in the Central Region A Championships and posted a time of 9:07.16 in the girl’s 800 m freestyle, breaking a 45-year-old Canadian record by 5.67 seconds. At the 2019 Age Group International, McIntosh came away with nine gold medals. At the 2019 Canadian National Swimming Championships, she won silver in the women’s 400 m freestyle and bronze in both the women’s 400 m individual medley and women’s 800 m freestyle.

While the world was dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak, McIntosh had to deal with personal tragedy. Her swim coach, Kevin Thorburn, died in April 2020. In 2021, her father was diagnosed with throat cancer, and he had to be isolated from his family. McIntosh trained for the 2020 Olympic Summer Games (which were held in 2021 because of the pandemic) with coach Brent Arckey in Sarasota, Florida, where she lived with her mother.

2020 Olympic Summer Games

At age 14, Summer McIntosh qualified for the Canadian Olympic team in the women’s 200 m, 400 m and 800 m freestyle. At the Games, she finished fourth in the women’s 400 m freestyle and the women’s 4x200 m freestyle relay.

2022 World Junior Female Swimmer of the Year

Summer McIntosh was recognized as a phenom after an outstanding 2022 swimming season. The 15-year-old won four medals at the 2022 FINA World Aquatics Championships (gold in the women’s 200 m butterfly and the women’s 400 m individual medley, silver in the women’s 400 m freestyle and bronze in the women’s 4x200 m freestyle relay). She became the first Canadian to win two gold medals at a World Aquatics Championship, as well as the youngest Canadian to win a gold medal at a World Aquatics Championship, at age 15. She also won six medals (two gold) at the 2022 Commonwealth Games  and set six world junior records that year.

Record-Breaking 2023 Season

At the 2023 Canadian Swimming Trials, Summer McIntosh set world records in the women’s 400 m freestyle (3:56.08; it has since been broken) and 400 m individual medley (4:25.87). She also won four medals at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships: gold in the women’s 200 m butterfly and women’s 400 m individual medley and bronze in the women’s 200 m freestyle and women’s 4x100 m freestyle relay.

2024 Accomplishments

Summer McIntosh set the women’s 200 m individual medley Pro Swim Series record in Knoxville, Tennessee, with a time of 2:07.16. She also broke her own world record in the women’s 400 m individual medley (4:24.38) at the 2024 Canadian Olympic Swimming Trials. She qualified to represent Canada in five individual events at the 2024 Olympic Summer Games in Paris.