Canada News

McIntosh Returns To A Haunt Of High Ambition On The Clock: Canadian Trials

Make way for Summer in Montreal 50 years after Canada hosted the Olympics in the same pool... much to celebrate, some things to lament, and a great deal to look forward to as trials get underway to select the Maple squad for Pan Pacs 2026

by Craig Lord

published July 05, 2026

Summer McIntosh and Canadian Trials shook hands at world-record pace on six occasions between 2023 and 2025. Here comes 2026, starting today in Montreal.

Ahead of the here and now, here are the six World and eight World junior records that fell to McIntosh at trials from the age of 16.:

World Records Set at Trials 2023-2025

The marks that also set World Junior Records still standing:

Those standards are part of a pantheon of nine World records (6 long, 3 short) and nine World junior records (5 long, four short) set by McIntosh, who raced at her first Olympic Games in Tokyo at 14 and her second in Paris at 17, when she claimed three gold (200 'fly, 200 and 400IM) and a silver (400m free).

On August 18, three days after the 2026 Pan Pacific Championships end in Irvine, California, McIntosh will finally leave her teens behind. And by then, we'll have seen where her first year based at the University of Texas with coach Bob Bowman has got her to at the only major international championship long-course target of the year.

This is the first season void off a World long-course championship since 2021, and one in which the Canadian has opted not to race at the Commonwealth Games later this month.

This week's trials in Montreal will select the Maple squad for the Pan Pacs, alongside celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the 1976 Olympic Games in the same city at the same venue. The actual days that mark the swimming in 1976 fall towards the end of this month.

Canada would have celebrated a home-Games 1976 campaign that would have soared above the good outcome the hosts did get to cheer for, had it not been for the GDR doping system and failure of the IOC and international federations to stay on top of cheating and manipulation run out of an official IOC laboratory, and then, down the decades, ever have the integrity and courage to reach for truth and reconciliation and recognition of the achievements of generations denied rightful status. Here's a touch of that horrid history and what its meant for some of those caught up in the sporting crime of the 20th Century:

McIntosh's Journey To 2026 & The Next Test

As our table above shows, the last time out at trials saw McIntosh, then training under the guidance of Brent Arckey and team at the Sarasota Sharks in Florida, broke three world records and set several other standards:

And that was a year after a soaring 2024:

Now, McIntosh tells CBC win the eve of trials, and with a nod to the Longhorns and Bowman:

"I've grown and matured as a person. I've put myself out there, and I've put myself in situations where I feel very out of my comfort zone. There's definitely no days off. And I think this is the first program where it's really felt like that."

Her ambitions for an Olympic campaign of five solo events, the target five golds, are no secret, Singapore 2025 Worlds having delivered four golds (400 free, 200 'fly, 200 and 400IM) and a bronze in the fastest-toughest-closest 800m free World-title battle in history:

The 800m come LA2028 will be tricker, organisers having placed the event within a couple of races of one of her other targets. But that's all to unfold way down the line.

Two years out from her next Olympic trials, McIntosh's next campaign goes live between July 5 and 9 in Montreal. Here the schedule: