Canadian sensation Summer McIntosh said she was “not done yet” after storming to Olympic gold in the 200m butterfly on Thursday with the second-fastest time in history and the fastest since 2009.
The 17-year-old hit the wall in an Olympic record 2 minutes 03.03 seconds ahead of American Regan Smith (2:03.84) and defending champion Zhang Yufei of China (2:05.09).
It was McIntosh’s third medal after winning the 400m medley and taking silver behind Ariarn Titmus in the 400m freestyle. She is also popular in the 200 meters.
“I think it’s quite surreal. I haven’t reflected on it too much now,” she said of her rise to the top in Paris. “Overall it’s been pretty amazing games for me, but yeah, I’m not done yet.
“After that I’ll have plenty of time to celebrate with friends and family, but I’m taking it easy now.”
He simply means eat, sleep and swim.
“I try to rest my brain as much as my body, and that’s something that works best for me in preparation for my next races,” she said.
“I think a lot of the time I’m successful at big meets like this just because I can feed off the crowd and know that my family is out there and that I get to represent Canada.”
Zhang quickly got out and was in front by the halfway point before McIntosh turned on the afterburner to head home.
McIntosh, the world 200m butterfly champion in 2022 and 2023, is steadily getting faster.
Her time at La Defense Arena was second only to China’s Liu Zige’s world record of 2:01.81, which was set in 2009 during the supersuit era.
“I think my finish was a bit weird but yeah, you can never be upset with the best time and that margin, so overall happy,” she said.
“I mean flying, sometimes it’s hard to see people, but tonight I kind of felt where I was, and I mean the 125, I feel like I didn’t start racing it.
“I really controlled it as much as I could. I usually go there kind of faster. But for some reason I don’t know, I decided to take it home as best as I could. So overall it kind of worked out.”
Smith, who is more comfortable with swimming, said she was excited about the silver.
“I knew I was going to be in the conversation for gold, but I literally couldn’t ask for more from myself in that race,” she said after setting a personal best that was also the fourth-fastest of all time.
“Like that was literally all I could do.
“So I’m incredibly excited and very happy for Summer as well. This is a great time for her.” Smith also won silver in the 100m breaststroke behind Australia’s Kaylee McKeown and returned to the pool on Thursday after her butterfly swim to qualify for the 200 breaststroke final.
