Big Read: A world champion and national record holder at 15, Summer McIntosh is ready to push herself — and Canadian swimming — to new heights. By: KrRutherford
“THAT GIRL DOES NOT DO ANYTHING SLOWLY”
These results have generated a lot of attention and, you’d think, pressure, but the swimmer responsible for them sure doesn’t seem to be sweating. Instead, McIntosh is ensuring her focus stays on her day-to-day training and working toward what’s ahead. The Commonwealth Games open this week in England, and the 2024 Olympics are fast-approaching. She hasn’t thought about how many podiums she wants to reach at her second Summer Games, when she’s 17.
“Normally when someone starts with us, you’re swimming with Olympic medallists and world championship medallists, and they’re very timid at first. She wasn’t shy in how she swam. And she immediately raised the bar for the program.”hardcore when it came to results. Her grade school gym teacher had to stop her and a friend named Sam when they ran the beep test, instead of letting them get tired enough to stop on their own. “They were afraid the kids were going to collapse,” Jill says.
Mallette will never forget McIntosh’s first few training swims with his group. “Normally when someone starts with us, you’re swimming with Olympic medallists and world championship medallists, and they’re very timid at first. They don’t go to the front of the lanes, they don’t beat everybody,” he says. “But Summer was never timid. She was beating a lot of swimmers from Day 1 in training. She wasn’t shy in how she swam. And she immediately raised the bar for the program.
Greg has now fully recovered, but while he underwent treatment, doctors told the McIntosh family to keep him isolated to reduce the risk of COVID worsening his condition. The rest of the family supported him as best they could. They also tried to continue as usual with their routines. Brooke resumed figure skating , and McIntosh returned to swim practice the next day, still working toward that Olympic berth.
“Fourth is obviously a difficult place to come, but I was content with fourth, because it obviously adds a lot of hunger going into the next few seasons of swimming,” McIntosh explains. “I was also content with it because in training every day leading up to the Olympics, I’d maximized my abilities.” When she’s outside the pool, there are many ways in which it’s clear McIntosh is a teenager, not a kid who’s grown up too fast because of her success. She’s almost too embarrassed to show you her autograph, which is her initials, designed to look like a fish. “You can totally tell I’m 15!” she says, after scrawling it on a piece of paper. “I really need to work on it.”
Wednesday mornings are the group’s toughest workouts, and McIntosh always sports what she calls her “signature suit” for that workout. Last year, it was a T-Rex swimsuit. “Anytime we saw it, it was, ‘Look out, Summer’s gonna go fast, she’s got the Dino suit on!’” Knox says, grinning. This season, that signature suit is a sunrise scene, but McIntosh plans to up her game: “I need to find a good one for next year, maybe another animal,” she says.
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