By: Benjamin  He

For the last month, the world has had its eyes locked on everybody’s favorite sporting event: the Olympics. This year the games have been hosted in France, in the grand city of Paris, to be specific. Even more recently, a big victory happened in the swimming sector.

The American athletes, Katie Grimes and Emma Weyant, finished the 400 individual medley on Monday, getting a silver and a bronze, respectively. A medal at all is still very impressive, but the gold winner was Canadian Summer McIntosh, at 17-years-old, who finished the 400 at 4:27.71.

It wasn’t necessarily a big upset. McIntosh, the current record holder and two-time world champion in the 400 was considered the favorite to win. What was surprising for this event, however, was the margin for her victory. To give you an idea, Grimes and Weynats times (the two swimmers who came in behind her), were (4:33.40) and (4:34.93) respectively. That’s around a six second time gap, which is a pretty big margin in speed-related sport like swimming where victory is often a matter of milliseconds.

McIntosh has been doing pretty well in the games so far. This gold medal is actually her second medal so far, her first being the silver in the 400 free event, in which Australian Ariarne Titmus took gold and American Katie Ledecky took bronze.

It was later reported that McIntosh realized she was pulling ahead by the time of the breaststroke leg, and she knew she was going to win by the freestyle leg. Despite the excitement, McIntosh appeared composed, unfazed by the fact that she had just won a gold medal in the Olympics.

“I have been doing this since I was 14,” McIntosh said. “Every single time I get to race on the world stage, I learned 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.”

This victory means that Canada has secured its second gold so far, the first being women’s under-57-kilogram judo, in which Christa Deguchi won. Despite not being the first gold for her country, a medal in the Olympics is still no small feat.

“She’s an inspiration to everyone,” said teammate Kylie Masse, who swam in the women’s 100-meter backstroke semifinals Monday night. “For so many young swimmers in Canada to be able to see her and see her success here on the international stage, (they’ll know) that they can dream big and continue to do whatever they put their mind to.”