How Summer McIntosh decided on the 200m medley — and what this gold could mean to Canada

PARIS – She is one powerful starting leap into the pool and 200 metres of fury over four different strokes away from a third gold medal.

But Summer McIntosh’s quest to make Canadian Olympic history comes in an event that is largely unfamiliar to her on the world stage. Don’t sell the 17-year-old short, however, as she’s still favoured to add to her historic medal collection even if the 200-metre medley is a bit of a mystery race in her past performance files.

On Saturday night at La Defense Arena, however, McIntosh will attempt to become the first Canadian to win three gold medal in one Games when she faces a stout field in the final, an event she has yet to compete in at an Olympics or world championships.

Here’s what you need to know about how McIntosh and her coaches settled on this race to round out her four-event individual program in Paris and what a victory would mean in the context of her sport.

When McIntosh and coach Brent Arckey were sculpting their training regimen for Paris 2024, they did so after a thorough study of the complete schedule for the Olympic meet. They settled on her races early and went to work.

The plan was to maximize opportunity with rest and recovery, which in turn would allow McIntosh to navigate the nine days of this Olympic meet as efficiently and productively as possible.

The 400-metre freestyle, which she earned silver in here a week ago, was an obvious candidate because it was on the first day of the meet and was followed by an off day. Check. The 400 IM on Day 3 was the ultimate no brainer, a race where she was the two-time defending world champion and world-record holder. Ditto for the 200 butterfly, which was contested on Wednesday following another day off. It was a race she was also reigning world champ.

The only decision, then, was what would be fourth? The 800-metre freestyle, a race where she defeated the great Katie Ledecky at a meet in Florida, was a candidate but it would have conflicted with some relay opportunities. Enter the 200 IM, which she cruised through her Friday prelims by winning her heat and finishing second to American Alex Walsh in her semi. The 800 free final — a taxing event that McIntosh can handle, is being contested the same days as the 200 IM. Of note, at last year’s worlds, McIntosh dropped the 200 IM because of a scheduling conflict.

Once their schedule was set, from their training base with the Sarasota Sharks in Florida, McIntosh and Arckey spent much of their prep time replicating the workload she is handling here. While is has surely been gruelling, McIntosh has paced herself to perfection and managed the extraneous bits of an Olympics. By all accounts she seems ready to deliver another peak performance.

Let’s start with the similarity to one of her golds already — the 400 IM where she destroyed the field to win by more than five seconds for the first gold of her Olympic career.

History tells us that it is possible for an athlete who captures gold in the 400 IM can likely repeat in the 200, as we’ve seen from Frenchman Leon Marchand, who dominated both races to capture two of his four golds.

As mentioned, McIntosh has yet to compete in a world championship in this race, but she does hold the junior world record with a time of two minutes 06.89. For context, Japan’s Yui Ohashi won gold at the Tokyo Games in a time of 2:08.52. The world record of 2:06.12 has stood since 2015.

McIntosh’s versatility is one of her obvious strengths, of course, helping her navigate through the four strokes – butterfly, breaststroke, backstroke and freestyle. There’s nothing weak for her from that group, as she’s shown repeatedly in her career.

While the Toronto teen will be a gold-medal favourite, she might not dominate the field as she did in the 400. That’s because there is some stout competition in form of reigning world champion Kate Douglas, Aussie Kaylee McKeown, a backstroke ace, and another American, Walsh.

A third gold medal (plus that silver to start things off) would make McIntosh the architect of the greatest single Games in Canadian Olympic history. No other Canadian has won three golds, for starters, and four medals total would be the second most, trailing only speed skating great Cindy Klassen, who collected five at Turin 2006.

It has been a sensational tour de force for McIntosh, the first Canadian woman to win two individual golds in one Olympics and the first Canadian swimmer to win three individual medals. A fourth on Saturday night would match Penny Oleksiak’s superb haul at Rio eight years ago, which included one gold, one silver and two bronze.