We knew from the age of seven or eight that she was going to be an exceptional swimmer … she beat 10-year-old and 12-year-old swimmers by a length of the pool,” her father Greg McIntosh told AFP. “She’s a force of nature. She’s been around since she was a child.”
The 17-year-old swimmer is already a four-time gold medalist at the World Championships — in the 200m butterfly and 400m breaststroke in 2022 in Budapest and in 2023 in Fukuoka.
The feat was accomplished in front of a hometown crowd during the Canadian Olympic Trials.
“She spends all her time swimming,” says her sister, Brooke McIntosh, from the family’s home in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke.
The McIntosh family’s passion for sports runs deep: their mother Jill saw the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and older sister Brooke shines in pair figure skating, winning a bronze medal at the 2022 World Junior Championships.
“We’re very competitive. It’s really in our blood,” Mikey, an orange tabby named by Summer after her idol, American Michael Phelps, the most decorated swimmer of all time, says with a laugh at her side.
With two teenagers with high-profile sports careers, the McIntoshes split the family in two: Summer and Jill live in the United States for pool training, Brooke and Greg in Canada for ice training. “We have a fairly detailed family calendar that reminds us all of our responsibilities,” explains the “very proud” father, who is “excited and nervous” about the Olympics in Paris.
