SINGAPORE—On a night without Summer McIntosh, you still appreciate Summer McIntosh. After two gold medals in two nights for the Canadian, on the third night of these world championships Katie Ledecky threw down a gold medal swim in the 1,500-metre freestyle, and she should never be taken for granted. Ledecky’s first 800 was blazing fast, and was a good preview of the race of the meet against McIntosh on Saturday.
McIntosh can blot out the sun, and can make absolute greatness feel almost routine. And then she takes a night off, and you re-realize how difficult it really is.
Take the women’s 100-metre backstroke won by Aussie Kaylee McKeown. Canadian swim icon Kylie Masse had qualified third and Taylor Ruck fifth for the final. But McKeown and American Regan Smith were too fast, and in the second 50 of the race Masse got passed by Katharine Berkoff of the U.S. Ruck, meanwhile, was slower than her semi, and finished seventh.
But Masse and Ruck are both swimming in uncertainty, too. Masse is the only Canadian swimmer to win a medal in three consecutive Olympics, and was tied with Penny Oleksiak as the all-time leader in world championship medals by a Canadian until McIntosh won her 10th medal Monday night here.
But after her incredible bronze in Paris, Masse took the biggest break of her career: out of the pool from August through to late October. Plus, she was bouncing around — ɫɫ, Vancouver, Spain, Florida and more. “This entire year has been such a funny blessing for me, to be honest,” she said. “Kind of just swimming for me, as opposed to swimming for anybody else.”
She surprised herself at the trials and was close Tuesday, but it wasn’t enough for a medal here, even in 58.24 (her personal best is 57.70 at the Olympic trials in 2021). And then there is Ruck, who was once thought to be more talented than Oleksiak. Ruck courageously went public with her eating disorder in 2021, but it has been a lasting struggle. Late last year, she really wondered whether swimming was over for her.
But Ruck felt like she still had something left to give the sport, and more to learn from it. She has dabbled in coaching, and her natural curiosity is driving her. In Canada’s disappointing 4x100 free relay, Ruck swam a 53.36, far faster than her 54.80 in the individual event at trials. But here she was slower than her qualifying time: 59.59, good for seventh.
“Throughout the years, that’s kind of a thing where I get really in a ball, scrunched up,” said Ruck. “Having fun with it is the most important part. So, yeah, I think I was a little bit tight tonight.”
Swimming isn’t inevitable for most, and doesn’t look easy for most. Ilya Kharun, the 2024 Paris bronze medallist, swam a blistering 200 fly in the heats, then an energy-conserving, late-closing 200 in the semis with the fifth-fastest time. But he had already missed the final in the 50 fly, in which he was one-hundredth of a second slow.
“It was really, really disappointing. Was really mad at myself and just mad at, like, everything,” said Kharun. “But you know, I just had to turn it around, think of it as more experience. And of course in the future I won’t let that happen again, because I really trained for the 50. I had a lot more in the tank.”
In the women’s 200 freestyle semifinals, 19-year-old Ella Jansen reached her first worlds semi, but finished 11th; Mary-Sophie Harvey, who struggled to sleep after getting her first individual medal at a long-course worlds, fought a left shoulder injury and gutted her way to 15th.
“I wanted to give it a go, see if I can manage, but sadly it was just not there,” Harvey said
There was a time when Canada used to scrape at big swim events, and this felt like a distant echo. Kharun is a medal hopeful — he ranks as Canada’s best hope for its next one here — but can still miss. Jansen is a year older than McIntosh and building confidence with solid swims. Harvey still has to learn how to come down after her greatest moments. Masse is fighting to keep going into an uncertain future — at 29, Los Angeles is a long three years away. Ruck is still rebuilding herself.
But even on a Summer-free night, McIntosh showed up without prompting when the 25-year-old Ruck started musing about Los Angeles as a goal.
“It is a big decision, and I think that’s what I’m excited and nervous about in my late 20s: figuring out where life takes you, and having your priorities straight,” said Ruck. “So I’m excited to be learning about what that looks like, especially from teammates. Summer, Mary, they’re so cool to see, just their stories, their journeys. And honestly, it is inspiring for my own goals, looking forward like that.”
What a thing if the swimmers who inspired McIntosh get inspired to stick around, by McIntosh. The kid didn’t swim here on this night. But she was here.
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