World Championships, Day 8 Finals: Summer McIntosh Achieves Fourth Gold Medal, Championship Record in Dominant 400 IM
The 800 freestyle final marked the first and only time this week that Summer McIntosh was not utterly dominant. After racing neck-and-neck with Katie Ledecky and Lani Pallister for 15 laps, the Canadian did not have the energy remaining to finish strong as she fell to bronze-medal position. Her disappointment was evident, but McIntosh immediately put that aside to begin preparing for the 400 IM on the final day of competition.
And in this one, no one was ever stopping McIntosh. McIntosh posted her latest world record of 4:23.65 at Canadian Trials in June to put herself almost three seconds clear of the second-fastest performer in history and almost eight seconds ahead of anyone else competing this year. Indeed, McIntosh was already up by a full second at the 50-meter mark, and she never looked back.
McIntosh flirted with the world-record line in the early going, but her own pace became too much on day eight of the World Championships with no real competition. Still, a two-second lead after butterfly turned into four seconds after backstroke, almost five seconds after breaststroke and a full seven-and-a-half seconds by the finish, with McIntosh earning the largest margin of victory of any swimmer all week.
McIntosh touched in 4:25.78, crushing her own championship record of 4:27.11 set two years ago in Fukuoka. The time is the third-quickest performance in history, with no other swimmer having ever surpassed that time.
More importantly, the 18-year-old wrapped up one of the most successful World Championships performance ever. McIntosh became the fifth swimmer to win four individual world titles at one meet, joining a pantheon of American greats such as Michael Phelps (2007), Ryan Lochte (2011), Ledecky (2015) and Caeleb Dressel (2019). She is only the third swimmer to win five individual medals at one meet, joining Phelps (2007) and Sarah Sjostrom (2019).
Behind McIntosh, an exciting race for silver came down to the wire before Australia’s Jenna Forrester and Japan’s Mio Narita touched in the exact same time, 4:33.26. Forrester was in third place at the halfway point before jumping past American Katie Grimes on breaststroke. In contrast, Narita was in seventh place at the halfway point, but her breaststroke split was quickest in the field as she put herself into the medal mix. Forrester and Narita fought all the way to the wall before ending up with a shared medal.
China’s Yu Zidi, a 12-year-old who has been in the mix in all three of her individual events this week, ended up fourth in 4:33.76. Just like she did in the 400 IM and 200 fly, Yu swam a best time but fell just short of earning an individual medal. She will leave Singapore with one bronze medal after swimming a prelims leg of the 800 free relay for the Chinese women.
The United States pair of Grimes and Emma Weyant have both been consistent international medalists in this event, claiming silver and bronze medals at last year’s Paris Olympics, but they were unable to get into the mix here, with Weyant ending up fifth (4:34.01) and Grimes sixth (4:36.52).
