Canadian star Summer McIntosh has stunned the swimming world by annihilating Ariarne Titmus’ 400m freestyle world record by more than a second at her national trials.
After picking up a silver medal behind Titmus in the event at last year’s Paris Olympics, McIntosh sent an ominous warning ahead of this year’s world championships in Singapore by clocking a remarkable time of three minutes, 54.18 seconds in the 400m freestyle final at the Canadian swimming trials.
The 18-year-old, who won three gold medals at the recent Olympics, went 1.2 seconds under Titmus’ best time, set at the 2023 swimming championships in Fukuoka.
By the 200-metre mark, McIntosh was 0.52 seconds under Titmus’ world record. With a lap to go, she was 1.39 seconds under.
McIntosh produced the biggest improvement on a women’s 400m world record since Katie Ledecky shaved 1.91 seconds off her own world record at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
“Going into tonight, I knew that my training has been really good these past few months and I knew that I could do something special,” McIntosh told the CBC broadcast.
“I didn’t think my training would be [three minutes] 54.1 [seconds] but I’m really happy with that.
“I didn’t really feel a lot of pain in that. I flipped at the 200 and I was just cruising, so I knew that I was having a strong swim. I could tell by the crowd … that I was probably close to the world record.”