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PARIS — Canadian wunderkind Summer time McIntosh continued her ascent to the highest of swimming with gold within the ladies’s 200-meter butterfly on the 2024 Olympics on Thursday.
McIntosh, 17, claimed her third particular person medal of the Video games and second title. Her victory within the 400-meter particular person medley Monday was her coming-out occasion on sport’s greatest stage. This was the primary of what might be many follow-up acts.
McIntosh gained the 200 fly in 2:03.03, beating American Regan Smith and China’s Zhang Yufei, who settled for silver and bronze, respectively.
It was Smith’s fifth Olympic medal and second of the Paris Video games. However the 22-year-old Minnesotan stays in quest of her first gold.
McIntosh, alternatively, is already en path to a number of. She is to ladies’s swimming what Léon Marchand is to the boys’s facet — besides that she is 5 years youthful, nonetheless unable to legally drink or vote.
But she already gained back-to-back world championships within the 200 fly in 2022 and 2023. She has already set world data. She has already gained eight medals at worlds.
And she or he has dealt with her second Olympics — sure, her second, at age 17 — with exceptional poise. She celebrated her 400 IM quite matter-of-factly.
“I took a while to understand the second,” she stated a pair days later. “… However now all I give attention to is the 200 butterfly.”
She spoke concerning the nerves and unpredictability of Olympic finals. “However I’ve really found out the right way to channel that and switch it right into a optimistic factor quite than a unfavorable factor,” she stated. She spoke as if she had been a 10-year veteran of the game on the worldwide stage. After which, on Thursday evening, she swam like one.
She swam just like the daughter of an Olympian, which she is. Her mom, Jill, swam on the 1984 Los Angeles Video games — within the 200 fly.
On Thursday, McIntosh went almost 10 seconds quicker than her mother ever did. She turned the primary lady to win three particular person medals at these Olympics. She might win a fourth Saturday within the 200 IM. And she or he might have gained extra if the Olympic schedule had been just a little extra forgiving to her outrageous expertise.
