Paris (AFP) – Canadian sensation Summer McIntosh declared she’s “not done yet” after storming to Olympic women’s 200m butterfly gold on Thursday with the second fastest time in history and the quickest since 2009. The 17-year-old hit the wall in an Olympic record 2min 03.03sec ahead of America’s Regan Smith (2:03.84) and Chinese defending champion Zhang Yufei (2:05.09). It was McIntosh’s third medal after winning the 400m medley and taking silver behind Ariarne Titmus in the 400m freestyle. She is also favourite in the 200m medley.
“I mean, it’s pretty surreal. I haven’t reflected on it too much right now,” she said of her rise to the top in Paris. “Overall, it’s been a pretty amazing Games for me, but yeah, I’m not done yet. I’ll have lots of time to celebrate with my friends and family after, but right now I’m just keeping it simple.” By simple she means just eating, sleeping, and swimming. “I try to rest my brain as much as I do my body and that’s kind of what works best for me to prepare for my following races,” she said.
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“I think a lot of the times I do very well at big meets like this is just because I can feed off the crowd and knowing my family is out there and being able to represent Canada.” Zhang went out fast and was ahead at the halfway mark before McIntosh turned on the afterburners to surge home. Back-to-back 200m butterfly world champion in 2022 and 2023, McIntosh has been getting progressively quicker. Her time at La Defense Arena was second only to Chinese world record-holder Liu Zige’s 2:01.81, which was set in 2009 during the super-suit era.
“I think my finish was a little bit weird but yeah, you never can be upset with that best time and by that margin, so overall happy,” she said. “I mean fly, it’s kind of hard to see people sometimes but tonight I could kind of feel out where I was and I mean at the 125 mark, I feel like I hadn’t started trying to race it. I was really controlling it as much as possible. Usually I kind of go out there faster. But I don’t know for whatever reason, I decided to kind of take it home as best as possible. So overall, worked out somehow.”
Smith, who is more comfortable swimming backstroke, said she was thrilled with silver. “I knew that I’d be in the conversation for gold but I literally cannot ask any more of myself in that race,” she said after clocking a personal best time, which was also the fourth quickest of all time. “Like that was literally all I could do. So I’m incredibly thrilled and very happy for Summer as well. That’s a great time for her.” Smith also won silver in the 100m backstroke behind Australia’s Kaylee McKeown and returned to the pool Thursday after her butterfly swim to qualify for the 200 backstroke final.
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