Canadian swimmer Summer McIntosh wins silver at world championships

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BUDAPEST, Hungary — Toronto teenager Summer McIntosh won a silver medal in the women’s 400-meter freestyle at the world championships on Saturday.

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The 15-year-old finished second behind veteran swimmer Katie Ledecky of the United States.

The Canadians also won silver in the women’s 4 x 100 freestyle relay.

Ledecky defended his title in three minutes 38.15 seconds ahead of McIntosh in 3:59.39 which was a Canadian record over the distance. American Leah Smith took bronze in 4:02.08.

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McIntosh was the youngest athlete on the Canadian team at the Olympic Games last summer in Tokyo. At 14, she placed fourth in the 400m as well as fourth in the women’s 4 x 200m freestyle relay.

She became the first Canadian to win a world championship medal in the 400m freestyle and only the fourth in history to swim under four minutes.

« I’ve definitely learned a lot over the past year, » McIntosh said. “(I learned) how to run a 400m freestyle and I’m so happy with the way I swam it. It gave me a lot of confidence for the next two races.

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Ledecky, 25, collected his 17th career gold medal at the world championships.

« ‘It’s kind of surreal,' » McIntosh admitted. “I used to find Katie Ledecky quotes on the internet and make posters out of them. It’s crazy. She’s definitely one of my idols and being able to race her and follow her as close as possible is such a cool experience that I never thought I’d have.

Kayla Sanchez and Penny Oleksiak of Toronto, Taylor Ruck of Kelowna, BC, and Maggie Mac Neil of London, Ont., were second to Australia in the 4 x 100 freestyle relay. These four women also won Olympic silver in Tokyo.

Oleksiak, whose triple medal in Tokyo made her Canada’s most decorated Olympian with a career seven, swam the anchor leg again.

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« I was nervous, I haven’t raced seriously in a while, » Oleksiak said. »It was over so quickly. Overall I think we were confident.

Canada finished 1.20 seconds behind the Australians and more than a second and a half ahead of bronze medalist USA.

Oleksiak also hit the benchmark for most world championship medals won by a Canadian swimmer with her sixth.

Katerine Savard of Montreal and Rebecca Smith of Red Deer, Alta., swam the relay in the preliminaries and therefore also received medals.

Mac Neil, the reigning Olympic champion in the 100m butterfly, will only swim relays in Budapest. She was happy to be able to run on Saturday,

“I had the biggest back spasm of my life yesterday. It was really scary,” Mac Neil said. « But I knew I wanted to improve today and really fast so I could do it for these girls. »

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Canada won eight medals in the pool with two gold and six bronze, as well as a bronze in open water, at the 2019 world championships in South Korea.

On the seventh and final day of the Para-swimming World Championships in Madeira, Portugal, the Canadian team produced four medals to cap the competition with 18 (six gold, five silver, eight bronze).

Nikita Ens of Meadow Lake, Sask., won silver in the women’s S3 200-metre freestyle. Katarina Roxon of Kippens, NL, took bronze in the women’s SB8 100-metre breaststroke.

Aurélie Rivard of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., was third in the S10 100-metre backstroke, as was Alec Elliot of Kitchener, Ont., in the same race for the men.

Rivard was also a double gold medalist in Madeira with victories in the 50 and 100 meter freestyle.

The Canadian Para-swimming team has won the most medals at a single world championship since winning 21 in 2010.

« A lot of these guys are going to come back and start training again, and next year we’ll start counting towards the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris, » coach Mike Thompson said. “We cannot rest on these laurels. You have to keep pushing, keep improving.

« The first step is going to be to try to increase the size of the squad we bring to Paris, and if we can do that we will be in very good shape in 2024 and 2028. »