Triple-gold medallist Summer McIntosh ready for teenage fun after Olympic Games

Canada's Summer McIntosh poses with her four medals won in the pool at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024 in Paris, France. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi

PARIS — The only swimming Summer McIntosh's mom expects her daughter to do in the immediate future is in Lake Muskoka after a cannonball off the dock

"Summer's a free spirit," Jill Horstead said Monday in Paris. "Don't be fooled by her focus. She's very good at switching gears. As soon as she gets home, it's going to be full-on teenager having fun."

McIntosh, whose first name was inspired by the character Summer Roberts on the television show "The O.C.", has earned a measure of leisure after capturing three gold medals and a silver in the Olympic pool in Paris.

She's Canada's first triple gold medallist at an Olympic Games, winter or summer. The Toronto swimmer joins teammate Penny Oleksiak as the only Canadians to earn four medals at a Summer Games.

"I don't think it's sunk in yet," McIntosh said at a Canada Olympic House news conference. "I'm pretty sleep-deprived and tired, but coming here today, I knew that it would be so much fun to celebrate what Swimming Canada has done alongside my friends and my teammates.

"It's been great, but it'll definitely take a while for me to realize what exactly we've done. It'll sink in more once I head back to Canada."

She was expecting a second congratulatory call from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He also called after the first of her three gold medals.

McIntosh spent a good part of Monday with all her hardware draped around her neck.

"My neck's a little sore," she stated.

She's undaunted by the high bar she's set for herself in the years ahead to Los Angeles in 2028.

"I always want more," McIntosh said. "What keeps me in the sport is the job's not finished. I have so much left I want to accomplish. I'm only 17.

"I have many more years in the sport, however long I want to go, so it just keeps inspiring me every day, once I get back to training to keep pushing and moving forward."

Becoming an adult, and everything that entails, while maintaining an internationally elite level of swimming is the task for the young swimmer, but McIntosh won't be on that journey alone.

McIntosh will return to her Sarasota Sharks club in Florida and coach Brent Arckey. She has two more classes to complete to graduate from high school.

"It's a big four years for her age bracket, usually leaving home, going to university, all that stuff, she's going to be going through all of that, but you just take it one day at a time and just make sure that she's surrounded by the best people," said her mother.

"You kind of become your environment, so as long as you protect your environment, I think she'll be OK."

Swimming Canada high-performance director John Atkinson says keeping McIntosh healthy and happy and swimming fast to L.A. requires many moving parts.

"That is multi-faceted," Atkinson said. "It's not just working with the athlete, it's working with the coach, working with the family, and having strong relationships with everybody and with one goal at the centre of that -- looking after what a young athlete wants to do."

Three-time Olympic backstroker Kylie Masse, 28, has been where McIntosh is going.

"When you're so wrapped up in the times and the outcome, year after year after year, eventually that's going to get exhausting and you might start to feel a little bit burnt out. At least that's what I felt," Masse said. "It's in those times that it's the most important to really remember the journey and to keep things in perspective, and just the moments you share with your teammates outside of a pool.

"Moments in village and things like that are all so crucial to shaping your career. My advice to her is to really just soak in the moments that she's succeeded in the pool, but also know that there are so many other moments that she can take memories from."

McIntosh won 400-metre freestyle silver on swimming's opening night in Paris. The world-record holder in the 400 individual medley delivered gold on the third day.

She then took the 200-metre butterfly -- which Jill raced in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles -- in Olympic-record time followed by another Olympic record to win the 200-metre I.M.

"My 400 I.M. was very special for me, just because that's one of my favourite events, and since I have a world record, it was definitely kind of an expectation for myself to get the gold medal," McIntosh said. "Then for the 200 fly, it is definitely one of my favourite events, and since my mom did that event back in 1984 at the Olympic Games, to get gold, that was a very special moment to share with her.

"For the 200 I.M., it was just a great way to kind of finish off the meet for me. I really wanted that gold medal. I knew Day 8, I was going to be tired from all my swims. At the same time, I was just as ready to go on Day 8 as I was on Day 1 and that's something that really gives me a lot of confidence in what I did in training previously."

McIntosh was ready to celebrate her 18th birthday Aug. 18 at the family cottage with friends. Horstead says there are two different sets of keys for the Sea-Doo there.

"One that goes really fast and one that doesn't," mom said. "We haven't given her the really fast one yet.

"She drives it likes she swims. A little scary."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 5, 2024.