PARIS – For decades, Olympic swimming venues reflected the idea that the sport had two superpowers, Australia and the United States, and that all those nations were just supporting players.
But the Paris La Défense swimming arena, which will host the Olympics, had a very different atmosphere Monday night. Instead of Melbourne or Orange County, the arena felt more like Yonge Street or Portage and Main.
Amid the sea of Canadian flags and fans with faces painted red, white and red – red, white and red – one spectator held up a sign that read: “It’s summer in Canada.”
It’s also summer in Paris.
Summer McIntosh, a patriotic 17-year-old from Toronto, won the individual 400-metre gold medal at the Olympics on Monday night in perhaps the most dominant performance so far in the Paris 2024 swimming competition.
McIntosh touched the wall in 4 minutes, 27.71 seconds, well off the world record of 4:24.38 she set at the Canadian Olympic trials in May. Her nearly six-second margin of victory over American Katie Grimes (4:33.40) was the largest in an Olympic women’s 400 individual medley final since the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.
“I’m just trying to make Team Canada proud,” McIntosh said, “and set the tone.”
McIntosh’s victory in the opening heat of Monday night’s session also set the tone for a big night for the teenagers at the Olympic pool.
Romanian David Popovici’s victory in the 200m freestyle, 19, was as slender as McIntosh’s triumph was lopsided.
“It was a real dogfight,” Popovici said. “We all fought until the last blow, with every atom in our body.”
Popovici and Britain’s Matthew Richards were separated by just two hundredths of a second (1:44.72 to 1:44.74) and Luke Hobson of the United States finished just five hundredths of a second behind the bronze medal. “It’s historic,” Popovici said. “It’s the first gold medal in men’s swimming for our country. I’m very happy. I couldn’t have done it without the country being behind me and by my side. But at the end of the day, I did it because I did it for me.”
McIntosh made her debut three years ago when she was just 14 and the youngest member of the Canadian team in Tokyo, where she finished fourth in the 400 freestyle.
A year later, she won the 200 butterfly and the 400 medley at the World Championships.
On March 28, 2023, she shocked her country and the swimming world by breaking the 400m freestyle world record with a time of 3:56.08, then returned three days later to lower the 400m individual medley world record. On Saturday, she won her first Olympic medal, a silver in the 400m freestyle.
“I think it’s because I’ve been doing this since I was 14,” McIntosh said. “I mean, it’s obviously a lot different than Tokyo two years ago, but every time I race on the world stage, I learn more and more how to handle it mentally, physically and emotionally. I try not to get too high or too low. So yeah, I’m obviously super happy.”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
