Olympic Champ Summer McIntosh Swims 2:08 in Rare 200 Yard Breaststroke Swim in Florida

2024 Sarasota Sharks Turkey Meet

• November 15-17, 2024
• Selby Aquatic Center, Sarasota, Florida
• Short Course Yards (25 yards), Timed Finals
• Results on Meet Mobile: “2024 SYS Turkey Meet”

The 2024 Sarasota Sharks Turkey Meet kicked off on Friday, with Canadian Olympic gold medalist Summer McIntosh turning heads with a new personal best time in a secondary event.

McIntosh won the 500 free on Friday evening in 4:35.74, about eight seconds slower than her personal best, and followed it on Saturday morning with a 2:08.86 win in the 200 breast.

That 200 breast time was her first time swimming the event in yards; she has a best of 2:27.23 in long course meters and 2:29.31 in short course meters.

McIntosh cemented her status as the world’s top female swimmer in Paris with gold medals in the 200 fly, 200 IM, and 400 IM and a silver in the 400 free, so her having a fast 200 breaststroke is not a huge surprise. Swimming a 2:08, though, at this point of the season, in a local club meet, was enough to catch attention. For perspective, the top 200 breaststroker in the high school class of 2025 (which is likely where McIntosh would have been if she had taken the traditional route) is Addie Robillard with a 2:08.40.

McIntosh just-missed Sabyne Brisson’s 2023 LSC Record of 2:08.34, done when Brisson was a freshman at Georgia Tech.

Given what McIntosh swam in the 500 free, it’s pretty easy to project that she has a 2:06 or 2:05 200 yard breaststroke in her – and that’s in what is probably her 9th or 10th best yards event.

In the 200 IM, where her breaststroke is most important, she split 37.53 en route to gold in the Olympic final. That was a ways behind the silver medalist Kate Douglass, who won the 200 breaststroke in Paris, but is comparable to the other non-breatstroke IMers like bronze medalist Kaylee McKeown (37.77) and Yi Yuting (37.37)

She is also scheduled to swim a 100 fly, 100 back, and 100 breast this weekend, which will fill out her career yards IMX score. She has no 100 yard back time, her best 100 yard breast is a 1:04.11 from this meet in 2022, and her best 100 yard fly time is a 51.10 from Winter Juniors East in December 2022.

The meet was mostly designed as a racing opportunity for Winter Juniors-and-below members of the Sharks team, along with a few other smaller local clubs, so most of the rest of Sarasota’s top swimmers did not compete. For example, McIntosh won the 500 free by more than 30 seconds and the 200 breast by almost 10.

McIntosh is scheduled to race in December at the Short Course World Championships in December, though, and this was McIntosh’s first racing since her triumphant Summer Olympic Games.