By: Olivia Xia

17-year-old Summer McIntosh just won her first gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Summer’s time was 4:27.71 in the women’s 400 meter individual medley.

Summer previously set the world record of 4 minutes and 24.38 seconds at the Canadian trials for the individual medley. She also is a 2 times world champion in this event. The 400-meter medley is a mix of 4 different styles, butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. When she touched the wall, she was nearly six seconds ahead of American swimmer Katie Grimes who won silver. In such an extremely competitive event, a 6 second gap is a lot.

McIntosh comes from a sporting family. Her mother, Jill Horstead, was also a Canadian swimmer who competed in the 1984 Los Angelos Olympic Games, finishing 9th in the 200m butterfly. With her mother’s guidance, she started swimming at 8, and when she was 9, she decided she wanted to follow her mother’s footsteps and represent Canada at the Olympics one day.

“I have been doing this since I was 14,” McIntosh said. “Every single time I get to race on the world stage, I learn more and more about handling (it) mentally and physically and emotionally. I try not to get too high or too low depending on my race results.”

At the last quarter of the Olympic race, the swimming phenom glanced over her competition’s lanes and saw no one. She was already ahead, and she knew at that point that she was going to get the gold. “I kind of looked around to make sure I was in a comfortable lead and definitely knew that I had the gold medal going into that last 100 meters,” McIntosh said.

Summer Mcintosh is an inspiration to all young swimmers who dream of one day standing on the Olympic podium with a medal of their own.