Canada’s Summer McIntosh enhanced her status as one of the standout stars of the Paris Olympics on Thursday, winning the women’s 200m butterfly as powerhouses Australia won a fifth gold in the pool.
America’s Kate Douglass triumphed in the women’s 200m breaststroke while Hungarian Hubert Kos took gold in the men’s 200m backstroke. Australia’s dominant women’s team continued their run of relay successes with victory in the 4x200m freestyle.
The 17-year-old McIntosh came to Paris Games with high expectations after stellar performances over the past two years and she is more than matching her nation’s hopes. After winning the 400m medley and taking silver behind Ariarne Titmus in the 400m freestyle, McIntosh was favourite in an event where she has already won two world championships.
But her victory was emphatic as she produced the second-fastest time in history and the quickest in 15 years. McIntosh hit the wall in an Olympic record 2min 03.03sec ahead of America’s Regan Smith and Chinese defending champion Zhang Yufei. Her mother, Jill, had competed in the same event in the 1984 Los Angeles Games and the teenager was quick to remember that family history.
“The fact my mom did this event at the Olympics all the way back in 1984 and for me to be doing it now, I know she’s unbelievably proud of me,” she said. “It’s pretty unreal. The 200m fly I would say is one of my favourite races and it has been since I was a little kid. That last 50, I was just trying to feed off the crowd as much as possible. I knew it was going to be a fight to the wall.”
South Africa’s Tatjana Smith fell just short of a repeat gold in her final race at the Olympics before her retirement, being pipped by the impressive Douglass in the women’s 200m breaststroke. Smith established an early lead but Douglass was impressive at the turns as she finished in a time of 2:19.24. The 22-year-old Douglass was the silver medallist in the 200m breaststroke at the 2023 and 2024 world championships.
Smith, who won gold in the 200m breaststroke in Tokyo under her maiden name Schoenmaker and gold in 100m breaststroke earlier this week, confirmed she was bowing out of the sport.
Hungary has a rich swimming tradition but was without a gold in Paris until Kos produced a turbo-charged final lap to overtake Greece’s Apostolos Christou. The 2023 world champion, who is trained by Michael Phelps’s former coach Bob Bowman, produced a devastating final 25 metres to leave the Greek in his wake and finish a comfortable winner in the end. It continues an impressive Olympics for Bowman’s swimmers, with French favourite Leon Marchand having already claimed three gold medals. The USA has dominated the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay but Australia came out on top in an Olympic record time of 7:38.08, with Ariarne Titmus sealing the deal.
