2024 Swammy Awards: Canadian Female Swimmer Of The Year – Summer McIntosh

12/19/2024 02:46 PM

By Sophie Kaufman on SwimSwam

See all of our 2024 Swammy Awards here.

While she was racing at the 2024 Short Course World Championships in Budapest, 18-year-old Summer McIntosh's phone rang. She had set a world record in the women's 400-meter freestyle on the meet's opening day, so plenty of family and friends undoubtedly wanted to congratulate her. But this wasn't simply a congratulations call—it was also to let her know that she had been voted Canada's athlete of the year.

It was the culmination of an incredible year for McIntosh, whose sustained excellence throughout the calendar year earned her the Swammy for Canadian Female Swimmer of the Year for the second straight year.

Like many of the biggest names in the sport, McIntosh bypassed the Doha World Championships. But she still drew headlines early in the year, becoming the first person to defeat Katie Ledecky in the 800-meter freestyle since 2010. In their head-to-head, McIntosh clocked 8:11.39, breaking the decade-old Canadian record. She continued to make headlines through the spring, especially at the Canadian Olympic Trials, where she reset her 400 IM world record en route to qualifying for her second Olympic Games in the 400 freestyle, 200 freestyle, 400 IM, and 200 butterfly.

McIntosh's focus for the year was the Olympic Games in Paris, and that's where she delivered. The hype around McIntosh's name has been growing since the Tokyo Games, where she was the youngest member of the Canadian Olympic team. Since then, McIntosh has won world titles and set world records, all while still a teenager.

In Paris, McIntosh reached a new level of stardom. She came away with a Canadian record three gold medals at the Olympic Games. McIntosh was in two of the most competitive events on the women's side of the meet. She prevailed in an intense, long-awaited matchup between herself, Kate Douglass, Alex Walsh, and Kaylee McKeown in the 200 IM with an Olympic, world junior, and national record (2:06.56). Her other gold medals came in the 200 fly with an Olympic, world junior, and Americas record (2:03.03) and the 400 IM (4:27.71).

The 400 freestyle was McIntosh's other hotly anticipated race, as she had a rematch against Ariarne Titmus and Katie Ledecky. She claimed silver in the race (3:58.37), a year after finishing off the podium in the event at the 2023 World Championships.

But McIntosh wasn't done. She took a break after the Games but closed out her season with the 2024 Short Course World Championships in Budapest. The Duna Arena is a special pool for McIntosh—as she said in multiple interviews throughout the Short Course World Championships, it's the place where she earned her first world championship title in 2022. Two years later, McIntosh contributed to the world record-breaking spree in Budapest by taking down three world records.

She kicked off the meet by breaking Li Bingjie's 400 freestyle world record (3:40.25), then took down two of Mireia Belmonte Garcia's legendary marks in the 200 fly (1:59.32) and 400 IM (4:15.48). Her time in the 200 fly made her only the second woman in history to break the 2:00 barrier, while her 400 IM swim took down Belmonte Garcia's record from 2017 by 3.46 seconds.

In Budapest, McIntosh opted to skip the 200 IM—an event where she'd just claimed Olympic gold—in favor of the 200 backstroke. This was the first time she'd swum the 200 backstroke in an international competition. She performed incredibly well, winning silver behind Regan Smith's world record by breaking Missy Franklin's world junior record in 1:59.96.

In total, McIntosh won nine medals from international competitions in 2024: six gold, two silver, and one bronze to go with the

Honorable Mentions:

• Mary-Sophie Harvey: The 25-year-old Mary-Sophie Harveyhas had an incredible twelve months in the water. She made huge improvements in a range of events, from the 200 freestyle to the 100 butterfly. Harvey made her first Olympic team in 2021, swimming in the heats of the women's 4×200 freestyle relay. In Paris, she was an integral piece of Canada's roster, qualifying in the 200 free, 100 fly, 4×100 free relay, and 4×200 free relay, and she finished fourth in the 200 free, just missing the podium. But she got on the podium at the 2024 Short Course World Championships, earning her first individual World Championships medals by winning silver in the 200 freestyle (1:51.49) and bronze in the 400 freestyle (3:54.88), the latter of which was an Americas record.
• Kylie Masse: Kaylee McKeown and Regan Smith have dominated the women's backstroke conversation for the last year, with good reason. But Kylie Masse, an ever-consistent presence on Canada's international teams and the backstroke podium, can never be counted out. She won a tough fight with Phoebe Bacon for Olympic bronze in the women's 200 backstroke, coming from behind twice to get her hand on the wall in third. At the short-course World Championships in Budapest, she picked up bronze again, this time in the 50 backstroke. It was her 20th World Championship medal, the most ever by a Canadian swimmer.

Past Winners:

• 2023: Summer McIntosh
• 2022: Maggie MacNeil
• 2021: Maggie MacNeil
• 2020: Sydney Pickrem
• 2019: Maggie MacNeil
• 2018: Taylor Ruck
• 2017: Kylie Masse
• 2016: Penny Oleksiak
• 2015: Emily Overholt
• 2014: Brittany Maclean

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