WATCH: 17-year-old Summer McIntosh secures 400m IM Gold by over 5 seconds on Katie Grimes, wins with largest margin at the Olympic Games since 1984

Summer McIntosh won the 400m Individual Medley event by a comfortable lead over the rest of her competition.

WATCH: 17-year-old Summer McIntosh secures 400m IM Gold by over 5 seconds on Katie Grimes, wins with largest margin at the Olympic Games since 1984

Summer McIntosh dominated her way to gold (via IMAGO/X)

The Paris Olympic Games has been a record-setting affair for swimmers. Yesterday, Leon Marchand of France won gold in the men’s 400m Individual Medley by a margin of 5.67 seconds, a record for the race. Just one day later, Summer McIntosh of Canada secured a gold in the 400m IM for women and set history in the process of doing so.

The 17-year-old swimmer went up against Katie Grimes of Team USA, who was considered a favorite to win the event. As soon as the event commenced, the duo separated itself from the remainder of the participants in the second 50m stretch of the race. However, even Grimes was not ready to cope with what came next.

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Summer McIntosh turned on the jets. She managed to get ahead of Grimes and completed the event with a time of 4:27.71, which was 5.69 seconds ahead of Katie Grimes. Team USA’s Emma Weyant bagged third place in the event with a time of 3:34.93.

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Summer McIntosh has now won two medals at the Paris Olympic Games

The 17-year-old McIntosh won a silver medal in the 400m freestyle event on the 28th of July. Not bad for her Olympic debut. She holds the world record in the 400m individual medley event after completing the same in a time of 4:24.38 earlier in May. It is interesting to note that she also broke the record which she set a year ago.

Summer McIntosh
Summer McIntosh won the silver in the 400m freestyle event (via Sebastien Bozon)

Her rise to the biggest stage of sports is incredible. Summer McIntosh has admired Katie Ledecky for years and had even put up a poster of the swimmer on her wall growing up. Just weeks before she was set to turn 18, she got the opportunity to compete against the seven-time Olympic gold medallist. She beat Katie Ledecky to win the silver medal at the freestyle event, yet it was Australia’s Ariarne Titmus who managed to fend her off to win the gold.

Summer McIntosh’s record victory margin of 5.67 seconds happens to be the largest in women’s 400m individual medley at the Olympics since Tracy Caulkins in 1984. Caulkins won by a margin of 9.07 seconds. At just 17, McIntosh is a four-time World Aquatics champion, two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, and world record holder in the women’s 400-meter individual medley. It will be interesting to see her continue to get better and haunt others in the world of swimming for a long time.

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