Summer McIntosh Targeting A Michael Phelps Record At 2025 World Aquatic Championships

Summer McIntosh is only 18 years old, but the Canadian swimming phenom is already looking to put her name in the history books next to swimming’s greatest of all time, Michael Phelps. When pool swimming begins at 2025 World Aquatic Championships on Sunday, July 27 in Singapore, McIntosh will start her quest for five individual gold medals at the competition.

Phelps is the only other swimmer to win five individual golds at a World Championship—a feat he achieved in 2007, the summer before his historic performance at the 2008 Olympics.

It means a busy week for the young superstar. Over the eight-day competition, McIntosh will race the 400- and 800-meter freestyle, the 200-meter butterfly, and the 200- and 400-meter individual medley. There are preliminary heats of each race along with the medal rounds and she’ll have semifinal swims in the 200-meter events. And if that wasn’t enough swims for her, she’s also on some of the Canadian women’s relays.

Full Steam Ahead After The 2024 Paris Olympics

It will be an intense week for McIntosh, but since making her Olympic debut in Tokyo at 14 years old, McIntosh has prepared to take on this type of load. She medaled in all four of her individual events at the 2024 Olympics. After earning silver in the 400-meter freestyle on the opening night of racing, McIntosh won the 200-meter butterfly, 200-meter individual medley, and the 400-meter individual medley. Her swims in the 200-meter butterfly (2:03.03) and 200-meter individual medley (2:06.56) marked new Olympic records.

No female swimmer won more individual gold medals at the 2024 Olympics than McIntosh. It was a sensational performance for the teenager and was an example of strong schedule management. McIntosh could have challenged for the Olympic podium in the 200-and 800-meter freestyle, but her decision to not overload her schedule certainly paid off.

This year though, she is taking the next step forward in her career by adding the 800-meter freestyle to her event lineup at the World Championships. Placed at the beginning of the new Olympic cycle, these World Championships are an opportune moment for McIntosh to test herself in this way.

“The year after the Olympics is the year where there’s the most opportunity to do new things,” McIntosh told Swimming Canada during the 2025 Canadian Trials. “There’s so many more opportunities because there’s a lot of switching and changing. Maybe people [are]

taking a step back from the sport. I really want to take the next step and push even harder.”

McIntosh showed just how high those next steps could take her at the Canadian Trials for the 2025 World Aquatic Championships. She broke three world records, becoming the first person since Phelps to break three world records at a single competition. First, she took back the 400-meter freestyle world record (3:54.18). Then, she took down the nearly decade old 200-meter individual medley record (2:05.70) before lowering her own 400-meter individual medley mark (4:23.65). As for her other two events, she improved her standing as the second-fastest performer all-time, swimming 2:02.26 in the 200-meter butterfly and 8:05.07 in the 800-meter freestyle.

Rivalry Renewed With Katie Ledecky

By adding the 800-meter freestyle to her schedule, McIntosh has set herself up for two showdowns with the legendary Katie Ledecky at the 2025 World Aquatic Championships. Their battles in the 400- and 800-meter freestyle will be McIntosh’s toughest tests in her hunt for five individual gold medals.

Fans will not have to wait long to see these two stars go head-to-head either. Their first battle will be in the first finals session in the 400-meter freestyle. Two-time Olympic champion and former world record holder Ariarne Titmus is taking this season off, leaving McIntosh and Ledecky as the two heavy favorites. The pair last faced off in May—before McIntosh reclaimed the world record—at the in-season Fort Lauderdale TYR Pro Swim Series, where Ledecky ran down McIntosh on the back half of the race.

This race is a chance for McIntosh to conquer a long-standing goal. Despite now holding the 400-meter freestyle world record at two different times, she has yet to win the long-course world title.

Later in the meet, the two will reconvene for their first 800-meter freestyle race at an international championship. Ledecky has dominated this race for over a decade and is seeking history of her own in this event—she’s aiming to become the first swimmer to win an individual event at seven consecutive long-course World Championships. She made a strong case for herself by breaking her world record in the event in Fort Lauderdale.

“In my opinion, it [the 800-meter freestyle] is the biggest challenge,” said McIntosh on a pre-World Championships video call with media members on Wednesday, July 9. “Katie [Ledecky] is so strong and in her top form right now so that match-up will be awesome,” she said, before noting that though the 800-meter freestyle is longer, adding it over the 200-meter freestyle or 200-meter backstroke means she avoids adding a semifinal round.

But McIntosh will not go quietly. She has not raced the 800-meter freestyle much in the last couple of years, but her refocus on it this season has brought her quick results. In February, McIntosh became the first female swimmer other than Ledecky to break the 8:10 mark in the event. Then, she scared Ledecky’s fresh world record during her record-breaking spree at the 2025 Canadian Trials in June. McIntosh’s time of 8:05.07 was less than a second from Ledecky’s 8:04.12 world record, setting the stage for an epic race in Singapore.

The Goal Stays The Same

McIntosh made her decisions about her new World Championship lineup to push herself forward in her young career. “I’ve tried to do new stimulus and different things,” she said to Swimming Canada, “this is the theme for the season, just seeing what I can handle.”

There are more differences on the horizon for McIntosh as well. She has been training with veteran coach Fred Vergnoux in Antibes, France after spending several years in Florida with the Sarasota Sharks. This fall, she will move to Austin, Texas and join Bob Bowman’s training group in Austin, Texas. Bowman, of course, coached Phelps and recently guided France’s Léon Marchand to four gold medals at the 2024 Olympics.

Bowman has amassed a large group of professional swimmers in Austin, and McIntosh will be far from the only swimmer with Olympic golds and world records to their name at practice. It will be one more new challenge for McIntosh this year.

But first, there is the 2025 World Aquatic Championships and McIntosh’s attempt to match Phelps with five individual gold medals. And as she reminded the media in her pre-Worlds conference, regardless of any program changes, “the goal is always to get as many golds as possible.”