Summer McIntosh grabs Canada’s 1st medal in Paris with women’s 400m freestyle silver

Summer McIntosh has won Canada’s first medal of the Olympic Games in Paris with a silver in swimming’s 400-metre freestyle.

Australia’s Ariarne Titmus defended her Olympic crown in a time of three minutes 3:57.49 seconds ahead of McIntosh in 3:58.37 and bronze medallist Katie Ledecky of the United States in 4:00.86.

Titmus defended her crown Saturday by pushing the pace off the blocks and taking an early lead that the 23-year-old never relinquished.

McIntosh in the next lane ran second the entire distance. Ledecky, 27, faded at the end to finish over a body length behind McIntosh for bronze and the 11th medal of the American’s career.

Ledecky, McIntosh and Titmus took turns holding the world record recently with Titmus carrying the standard of three minutes 55.38 from the 2023 world championship into Saturday’s final.

McIntosh nearly won the first Olympic medal of her career in the 400 free as a 14-year-old three years ago in Tokyo, but placed fourth.

The Toronto swimmer is the world-record holder in the women’s 400 individual medley. McIntosh swims that event Monday.

“Going into tonight I really just wanted to put my best foot forward and race as hard as I could. Overall I’m pretty happy with the result,” said McIntosh. “An Olympics is always pretty nerve-racking, and there’s a lot of anticipation going into each race, so [I’m] kind of learning how to deal with that and also trying to feed off the crowd.”

The race had been compared to the epic men’s 200 freestyle “Race of the Century” showdown between American Michael Phelps, Australian Ian Thorpe and Dutch giant Pieter van den Hoogenband in 2004.

Titmus, known as “The Terminator”, led from start to finish.

“I’m just happy to get the result for myself and I feel so honoured to be a part of the race and be alongside legends like Katie,” Titmus said.

“I look up to her so much as an athlete, and there’s certainly not a rivalry beyond the races. I really respect her as a person and I hope that I put on a good show tonight and everyone enjoyed it.”

All three medallists were past or present world record holders.

“We knew it was going to be a great race going in, so many great competitors in the field,” Ledecky said.

“I knew it’d be tough and everyone in that field put up a great race. Ariarne [Titmus] and Summer [McIntosh] swam really, really well. I haven’t looked at how the whole race broke down, I can only see it from my lane, but kudos on some great races.”

Titmus swept the 200m and 400m freestyle in Tokyo, and she is going for the same double in Paris. Ledecky is going for a double in the 800m and 1,500m.

Also, defending women’s 100m butterfly champion Maggie Mac Neil of London, Ont., qualified for the final of that event.

She tied for the fourth-fastest time in the semifinals.

The event is set for Sunday at 2:40 p.m. ET. Along with TV broadcasts on CBC and its partner networks Sportsnet and TSN, you’ll be able to stream all of the action from Paris 2024 live and on demand at CBC Gem and on the CBC Sports Paris 2024 App.

Canadian women’s relay team finishes 4th

The Canadian women’s 4×100 relay squad of Summer McIntosh, Taylor Ruck, Maggie Mac Neil and Penny Oleksiak finished fourth in the event’s final, coming in 2.69 seconds after third-placed China.

Australia’s team of Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack, Emma McKeon and Meg Harris took gold with an Olympic record time of three minutes 28.92 seconds, securing their country’s fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the event.

The U.S. came in second, just 1.28 seconds behind the Australian team, which was good enough for an Americas record.

In the men’s 4x100m relay, Canada’s team of Finlay Knox, Yuri Kisil, Javier Acevedo and Josh Liendo finished in sixth place.

Caeleb Dressel collected his eighth career Olympic gold medal, and a first of the Paris Games for the U.S. team, when he anchored them to a second successive 4x100m freestyle title.

Australia took silver and Italy the bronze, with China missing out on the medals in fourth place.

Jack Alexy, Chris Giuliano, Hunter Armstrong and Dressel combined in a time of three minutes 09.28 seconds to beat Australia by 1.07 in the last final of a raucous opening night at the La Defense Arena.