How Summer McIntosh helped chart her own course to Olympic success

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PARIS — Penny Oleksiak, the original Canadian diva of the Olympic swimming waters, laughed when she tried to describe the competitive acumen of her 17-year-old heir apparent, Summer McIntosh.

“People always ask if I’m Summer’s mentor or Summer’s looking up to me, but we’re totally different people,” Oleksiak said here at Paris 2024. “She’s on this insane path. She loves her lists. She’s meticulous with everything the does. I take a more laid-back approach to things.”

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The fact that Oleksiak, who with seven medals is the most decorated Canadian Olympian ever, has that opinion of McIntosh gives us a glimpse into just what makes the latter so fast and formidable. That drive married with attention to detail has landed McIntosh a gold and silver medal already in her first two individual events at La Defense Arena with the potential of three or more to come.

While her talent is unquestioned, that’s just one part of the code for her, especially given the path towards domination that McIntosh seems headed. To that end, she’s hands-on with planning — both in her training regimen and race strategy — contributing via an intellect that belies her age.

“I think she’s very, very driven, organized and professional in how she goes about things,” Swimming Canada high performance director and national coach John Atkinson said. “She’s able to keep a wide vision on her events, but also works well with her coach, her parents and her support team to be very focused on what she needs to do.”

That focus manifests itself in many ways to further refine an already accomplished Olympian. Just shy of a year ago, McIntosh sat down with her coach Brent Arckey and they built a program together designed to maximize every moment of her time in Paris. The training was central, of course, but with knowledge of how the Paris schedule was to unfold, they locked heads to put a training plan together to focus on the right races.

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“It’s been 50 weeks, a year worth of preparation,” Arckey said in an interview prior to the Games. “It’s in a way been a whole life time for her – but certainly an emphasis for this entire year of setting up weeks that replicate the workload that could be coming (in Paris.)

“Physically we talked about what this could look like and feel like. How it’s going to be mentally. We don’t talk too much about the expectations. We talk more about the preparation. And just deal with whatever gets thrown at us.”

Because of spacing, the 200- and 400-metre freestyle — both events where she’s seen international success — were dropped. In training, there were weeks where they worked to best replicate the Paris schedule so as to get the body and mind ready to maximize the opportunity.

There was 100 per cent buy-in (and participation) from McIntosh, who applied the sense of detail that fascinated Oleksiak to every stroke of her training. She knew, for example, that Sunday and Tuesday were off-days in her racing program, which allowed her to go all in on the first two individual events on her ambitious slate.

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“I think she’s built on all of her experiences over the last three years, just building off of good and bad and she’s done a good job of dealing with the moment,” Arckey said. “At this level it’s about racing on the day of and I think she handled the moment pretty well. That’s been years in the making. A lot of that goes to her mentally and her tenacity wanting to be the best that she can be.”

When he talks about McIntosh, it’s clear Arckey is in some ways in awe of his pupil, who is an athlete that people in the sport are already referring to as the best female swimmer here. As head coach of the Sarasota Sharks in Florida, Arckey is seen as one of the brighter young minds in the sport, but in sculpting the champion that is McIntosh, he marvels at her approach.

“We have never talked about colours of medals,” Arckey said of McIntosh’s insistence not to get lost in Olympic dreams. “We’ve always talked about being the best that we can possibly be, as cliche as it sounds. That stuff happens when you’re trying to be the best you can be. I’d be lying if I told you it wasn’t in the back of anybody’s mind. Of course it is. But it wasn’t important for us to talk about that. It was important to talk about other stuff day-to-day in order to have this result.”

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She’s meticulous with everything the does

Arckey has talked about McIntosh’s ability to have her mind summon her body to push it to extreme physical limits. But he’s also seen her keen sense of what works on race day. When it comes to race strategy, McIntosh’s tactical mind is already proving a strength. Through the heats and finals of her two individual races here, McIntosh has shown her savvy in that regard. Broken down her strategy seems simple: Take care of business in the morning, empty the tank while gunning for a medal at night. In actual execution, the brilliance she’s shown in this facet of her sport resonates incredible maturity and intelligence for an athlete her age.

First to Monday’s gold medal win in the 400-metre individual medley: In the morning qualifier, she leisurely recorded the third fastest time which as enough to snag an inside lane — a critical task to keep an eye on the competition. In the final, there was no such mercy, as she was more than five seconds better than runner-up Katie Grimes of the U.S.

In her first event here, the sterling silver medal effort in the 400-metre freestyle, a 17-year-old with less mental acumen might have wilted at the assignment of taking on two wildly accomplished superstars in Aussie winner Ariarne Titmus and American bronze medallist Katie Ledecky. Instead, McIntosh dialled in to the playbook she and her coach had concocted.

“I think the best part is she’s willing to learn all that stuff,” Arckey said. “If you have a teenager who is willing to learn how to manage all that stuff this is the end result.”

And then Arckey articulated the key element to McIntosh’s ascent to becoming one of the best swimmers in the world. By being involved as she is, it shows that she intends to be in the sport for the long haul.

“If you love the process of trying to find ways to get better I think longevity happens. She’s interested in finding the ways to get better and that keeps her fresh and interested.”

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