W400 Free: McIntosh Sets Sail On Trail Of Golden High-Five Haul With Cool Victory In 400 Free
"I think tonight is my biggest night of the whole meet. So to come out with a gold medal and a really good, strong semi-final in the 200IM, I'm really happy." Canadian ace Summer McIntosh, one golden target down, four to go
Summer McIntosh, 18, ticked off the first of her five World-title targets in Singapore on day 1 of racing in the pool with a 3:56.26 victory so smooth as to make such feats easy, if not comfortable.
It was nothing like it, of course, but McIntosh emerged from her first victory over Katie Ledecky at global level - which she followed with a 2:07.2 in the semi-final of the 200m medley just over 20 minutes later - to say:
“While preparing mentally for this world championships, I think tonight is my biggest night of the whole meet. So to come out with a gold medal and a really good, strong semi-final in the 200IM, I'm really happy.
I've never done a double like that, and I think 400m free, at past World Championships and Olympics, I haven't been at my best, and I haven't been where I wanted to be. So to finally stand in the centre of the podium is promising for the rest of the meet.”
The closer battle with Ledecky may unfold over 800m free next Saturday, but over 400m, McIntosh was dominant, taking control from start to half-way, plug on the pressure down the fifth length and then emerging from the turn with a spring in her stroke as visible as the obvious break it represented.
The three-times Olympic champion from Paris 2024 never looked back on the way to her first global gold in the 400m free, in which she finished ahead of the American legend last year at the Games for the sole silver in her collection, adrift Australian Ariarne Titmus.
Ledecky was still closest to the champion as the Canadian hurtled towards the end wall but China's Li Bingjie produced a staggering last length, travelling a full second faster than the American known for her finishing speed. McIntosh 29.22 to gold; Ledecky, 29.95 to bronze; Li, 28.67 to silver. The art of chasing, one might call it.
That outcome marked the first bronze for Ledecky in any World-Championship race, her 27th long-course showcase podium since 2013 topped by 21 golds, five silvers following on. The golds include gold in the 400m in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2022, and silvers in 2019 and 2023. Phenomenal.
The Singapore race unfolded on the 58th anniversary of Debbie Meyer's first World record over 400m freestyle on her way to becoming the first woman ever to claim three gold medals at a single Olympics in solo swimming events:
Craig Lord
How The Race Shuffled The All-Time Top 10:
Top 10 All-Time 400m Freestyle
Women's Long Course Metres
Legend:
- Textile swimming suits ranked; shiny suit swims (2009) shown in sequence but unranked to reflect banned (since January 2010) non-textile materials
History rolls with every dice McIntosh throws ... read on...
