Best of the Best: Stacking Up Summer McIntosh Performances From 2025
A run of world records at June’s Canadian Trials gave Summer McIntosh numerous options to be considered as the top performance of the year 2025. The versatility of McIntosh is a trademark, and so is the dominance she has demonstrated over her competition.
Here are the best performances that McIntosh delivered this year. There are seven efforts worth mentioning, all from the Canadian Trials and World Championships. McIntosh was relatively quiet in competition for the first part of the year as she prepped in France with coach Fred Vergnoux for her incredible summer. Then, after moving her training to the University of Texas and coach Bob Bowman, an illness knocked her out of the World Cup circuit. McIntosh rebounded to swim well at the U.S. Open, but her most incredible marks came within a two-month span.
1. 400 Freestyle at Canadian Trials (3:54.18 WR)
This was already the No. 1 performance by any female swimmer all year as McIntosh beat the previous world record of Ariarne Titmus by more than a second. But it also set up another record run to take place 24 hours later, a record few had previously considered to be within reach.
2. 200 IM at Canadian Trials (2:05.70 WR)
Remember that the 200 IM was far from McIntosh’s main event in the early stages of her international career. While she won 400 IM world titles in 2022 and 2023, she eschewed racing in the 200-meter race as it conflicted with the 400 free. Entering the Paris Olympics, McIntosh was only a slight favorite in the event thanks to the presence of world champions Kate Douglass and Alex Walsh plus versatile Australian Kaylee McKeown. But her come-from-behind win in the Olympic final propelled McIntosh to a similar realm of dominance.
And at her Worlds selection meet, McIntosh put together a world record, beating the previous mark by more than four tenths. The world record had been 2:06.1 for 16 years, going back to the supersuit era of 2009. Ariana Kukors clocked 2:06.15 at the World Championships that year, and Katinka Hosszu clipped that by three hundredths in 2015. It would take another decade for McIntosh to get under that time.
The Canadian’s always-strong butterfly and her improved backstroke put her well under world record pace, and then she survived the breaststroke leg, touching just off Hosszu’s pace at the 150-meter mark. A 29.95 homecoming split sealed the deal as McIntosh became the first woman ever under 2:06 with her time of 2:05.70.
Photo Courtesy: Emily Cameron
3. 200 Butterfly at World Championships (2:01.99)
This was not a world record, but McIntosh came painfully close to a mark that has stood since 2009, the 2:01.81 of Liu Zige that once appeared it would last for decades. A time of 2:03.03 in her golden effort at last year’s Paris Olympics gave the idea that McIntosh might one day approach the standard, but it happened even quicker than expected.
In Singapore, as McIntosh opened up a huge lead over American Regan Smith, she moved her way under world-record pace at the 150-meter mark. Maybe? Alas, it was not to be on this occasion, although her time was the second-fastest in history and the first time anyone had been under 2:02 since 2009. McIntosh let the world know her feelings on coming up short; upon seeing the scoreboard, camera caught her mouthing a profanity. Next year, perhaps.
4. 200 Butterfly at Canadian Trials (2:02.26)
This performance had been the second-fastest in history (and within a half-second of the world record) before Worlds. It was this swim that put McIntosh in range of Liu’s time prior to Worlds. The 200 fly would end up as the only event where McIntosh swam faster at the global competition than she did at the selection meet.
5. 800 Freestyle at Canadian Trials (8:05.07)
One month earlier, Katie Ledecky has broken her own world record in the 800 free. It had been nine years since Ledecky had previously set the mark in the event, one had come close to Ledecky’s dominance in the event during that span. Well, except McIntosh, who had beaten Ledecky had a local meet in Florida in the spring of 2024. In early 2025, she went 8:09.86 to become the second woman ever under 8:10. Thus, the 800 free was penciled into her schedule for this summer’s competition.
She would swim the 16-lap event at Trials just one night after her stunning world mark in the 400 free, and everyone knew she was gunning for the top time in the 800-meter race. Indeed, McIntosh would swim under world-record pace for the majority of the event with her domestic competition out of the picture and a partisan crowd roaring. Within a tenth of Ledecky’s split entering the final length, McIntosh could not keep pace and ended up finishing in 8:05.07, just under a second off the mark. In her fifth-best event, McIntosh showed she was capable of challenging the greatest swimmer in history.
6. 400 IM at Canadian Trials (4:23.65)
A world record in the sixth spot? For this Canadian star and no one else. This was the most overlooked of her swims from the selection meet because she already owned this world record, having gone 4:24.38 at the selection contest a year earlier. This one was most notable for giving McIntosh an incredible third individual world record at the same meet. With this world record, she showed significant improvement on the backstroke leg, a 1:06.13 split a full second quicker than she went in her previous record.
7. 400 IM at World Championships (4:25.78)
This one was not a world record or even close, although McIntosh did lower her own championship record. But this 400 IM is worth noting as it gave McIntosh a fourth individual gold medal in Singapore as she defeated the field by seven-and-a-half seconds. This performance showed some perseverance as McIntosh bounced back from a disappointing bronze medal in the 800 free one day earlier, and it showed her incredible margin over the rest of the world, even on day eight of competition in her 12th race of the meet.
