McIntosh posts fastest 200m free of year at Canadian Swimming Open

TORONTO — Summer McIntosh posted the world's fastest 200-metre freestyle time of the year Wednesday at the Canadian Swimming Open.

McIntosh, one of Canada's biggest medal hopes for this summer's Paris Olympics, swam to first place in one minute 54.21 seconds at the Pan Am Sports Centre.

“Overall I was really happy with that. I felt quite strong,” McIntosh said. “To get a result like that in the training that I’m in is pretty good. I’m overall happy with it.

"I don’t have any crazy expectations for this meet or anything like that but any time I get to come back to Toronto I’m always happy. It’s such an amazing pool and the crowd’s always awesome.”

The 17-year-old from Toronto set a personal best of 1:53.65 in the 200 free at last year's world championships in Fukuoka, Japan.

Mary-Sophie Harvey of Trois-Rivières, Que., was second in 1:56.76 and Julie Brousseau of Ottawa placed third in 1:58.40.

Seven-time Olympic medallist Penny Oleksiak of Toronto finished sixth with a time of 1:59.75 in her return to competitive swimming.

“I feel good because right now my front end is feeling really strong and I feel really confident about that,” Oleksiak said. “Now I’ve got to work on my back end and that comes with training and time and learning from meets like this.”

In other results, Olympic gold medalist Maggie Mac Neil of London, Ont., placed first in the women’s 100 back (59.93) and Nathan Bennett of Parksville, B.C., set an S14 national record of 1:54.20 in the para 200m freestyle multi-class.

The Canadian Swimming Open continues through Saturday. The Canadian Olympic and Paralympic trials are set for May 13-19 in Toronto.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 10, 2024.