Summer McIntosh has won her third medal of Paris 2024, swimming to gold in the women’s 200m butterfly in Olympic record time of 2:03.03.
This is Canada’s first ever Olympic medal in the event. She is the first Canadian woman to win two gold medals in one edition of the Olympic Summer Games and have both of those gold medals come in individual events. She becomes the first Canadian swimmer since Alex Baumann at Los Angeles 1984 (and just the third Canadian swimmer all time) to win two gold medals in one Olympic Games.
McIntosh executed her race plan to perfection. Off the start, she was a little behind China’s Zhang Yufei, the defending Olympic champion, but McIntosh gradually closed that gap through the first half of the race. Once they turned into the third lap, McIntosh made her move. Heading into the final 50 metres, McIntosh had opened a lead of nearly three-quarters of a second. While Zhang began to fade, American Regan Smith moved into second while McIntosh continued to pull away. She ended up getting the victory by 0.81 over Smith who finished in 2:03.84. Zhang took bronze in 2:05.09. McIntosh too 0.83 off Zhang’s previous Olympic record time.
McIntosh came to Paris as a two-time world champion in the 200m butterfly, winning gold at the 2022 and 2023 World Aquatics Championships. She had posted the fastest time in the semifinals.
The 17-year-old phenom has reached the podium in each individual event in which she has raced so far at these Games. After opening with silver in the 400m freestyle on Saturday, she captured gold in the 400m individual medley on Monday.
McIntosh didn’t have long to celebrate her second gold medal before getting back into the pool just over an hour later for the final of the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay.
