Canadian teenager Summer McIntosh smashed the 400m freestyle world record in some style on Saturday, recording a time of 3:54.18 at the Canadian Swimming Trials.
That time trimmed more than a second off the previous mark held by her longtime rival Ariarne Titmus, who beat the 18-year-old to the Olympic gold medal in this event at the 2024 Paris Games.
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Despite her age, McIntosh is already well accustomed to breaking records and winning the biggest titles in the sport – in Paris, she became Canada’s first ever triple champion at a single Olympic Games.
Still, breaking this world record provoked an emotional outburst rarely seen from McIntosh as she smashed the water and clenched her fist in celebration after noticing her time.
“Touching the wall, you can kind of see my outburst of emotions because I was really not expecting that time. But overall I’m super, super happy,” she told reporters afterward.
“I think just seeing the time after two years of really pushing my hardest every day and training in this event and not seeing the results…
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“So just kind of all that energy and anger and blood, sweat and tears built up and then finally having an amazing swim in it is just really, really satisfying.”
McIntosh previously held the world record in this event before Titmus snaffled it, the Canadian recording a time of 3:56.08 in March 2023, almost two seconds slower than the mark she set on Saturday.
This time around, she set off slower but recorded a blistering second half of the race to improve on her time.
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