Gold Medalist Summer McIntosh of Team Canada celebrates with friends and family during the Swimming medal ceremony after the Women’s 400m Individual Medley Final on day three of the Olympic Games at Paris La Defense Arena on July 29, in Nanterre, France.Sarah Stier/Getty Images
In the chaotic moments following Summer McIntosh’s emotional gold-medal swim in Paris, her family wended their way down through the crowd, inched close to where she stood on the podium and got her attention.
When McIntosh was done singing O Canada, she bounded over to the seats and hugged her family, embracing them all at once, as the television cameras zeroed in. But there was more to that emotional embrace than the cameras would have caught.
It was the first time all four of them – Summer, her sister Brooke, her dad Greg and her mom Jill – had been in the same place in a long time. Maybe 10 weeks, they’re not really sure.
“That hug was like, we were actually physically touching each other,” Jill McIntosh said, still marvelling a day after her daughter was crowned an Olympic champion.
It was a big deal for the family, who have been scattered all over the globe due to their sporting pursuits. Summer trains in Sarasota, Fla., where Jill has spent many months back and forth from Canada, supporting the 17-year-old swimming phenom in her lead-up to Paris.
Brooke, a figure skater with her own medal aspirations, now trains in Berlin. And Greg’s been back in Toronto.
“I think this is the first time in 10 weeks where we’ve all been in the same country,” said Brooke, 19.
As soon as the 400-metre individual medley ended, Jill turned to Brooke, who has been the most detached from the family amid the pursuit of Paris: “You’ve made the most sacrifice of anyone to allow Summer to get here.”
Then Brooke burst into tears.
That the family haven’t spent a lot of time together lately has only been magnified here. Aside from that hug, and a quick exchange near a bus, the McIntoshes don’t really get to see Summer at all, unless it’s from the stands.
But that’s okay. Everyone in the family knows what the priorities are right now. Summer is swimming one of the busiest schedules any Canadian swimmer has ever attempted. She won silver Saturday in the 400-metre freestyle, gold on Monday, and will contend for medals in two more individual races, then one or two more relays.
Until the meet ends Sunday, Summer remains laser-focused. “She can really let loose after the Games are over,” Jill said.
Indeed, Summer McIntosh is less than three weeks from her 18th birthday, and the way things are going, the celebration has all the makings of a potential rager, given how much there is to celebrate. Ms. McIntosh plans to head to the family’s Ontario cottage after the Olympics end. Her friends will join her, along with her teammates from Sarasota.
“She’s going to have how many friends there?” Greg asks Jill.
“I don’t know. A lot. A dozen or so.”
The guest list is probably growing by the minute.
But it’s a perfect example of the two sides of Canada’s best swimmer.
There is Summer McIntosh, the impossibly poised young woman at the Olympics, who takes every race, and every question she gets, head-on and serious.
Then there’s the one her family calls Sum.
She’s the spicy one – Jill’s word – who likes to joke around, who talks about regular teenager stuff, and who streams movies via FaceTime with Brooke, with the two of them declaring “1, 2, 3, play!” so they can watch along together when they’re in different countries.
After the gold medal, Brooke texted Summer back at the athletes village to say how proud she was. They talked for a bit about the medal, then moved on to other subjects.
“Obviously, I started with, ‘I’m so proud of you. I love you.’ And then we just started talking about stuff at home and our cats and our parents,” Brooke said.
“What did you say about the parents?” Greg asks.
On the other hand, Summer McIntosh is the swimmer who speaks in perfect sentences and carries herself like she’s much older, which is not something new, Greg says.
“She has always been like that. Even as a small kid, we called her an old soul. Because she just had a perspective on things that was far beyond her years.”
Sum, on the other hand, is the one who, during the pandemic lockdown, decided Brooke needed to add swim workouts in the backyard pool in Toronto to her daily routine. But rather than swim herself, Sum grabbed a stopwatch and a whiteboard and began coaching Brooke from the edge.
“I think she liked the power a little,” Brooke says.
Summer McIntosh, the Olympic champion, definitely likes to be in command. In her gold-medal swim, she launched off the blocks and held the lead from start to finish, in one of the most gruelling events in swimming.
But that’s the thing about McIntosh, her family says. Summer has come to the Paris Olympics on a mission. She is focused and ready. And for now, her alter-ego, Sum, is back in Ontario at the cottage, patiently waiting to celebrate what goes down in France.
Part of that focus comes from her parents, who always insisted their kids play sports they love, don’t force it if they don’t enjoy it, and most of all, work hard.
Greg played hockey and baseball growing up, while Jill swam for Canada at the 1984 Olympics under her maiden name Horstead. They say Summer’s superpower is her ability to compartmentalize: she can shrug off a bad race and move on, she can handle multiple different events in her head, and she doesn’t seem fazed by pressure.
“She knows if she puts that discipline into the meet, then she will have even more fun coming when she can actually have a lot of fun – for a long time after the meet,” Jill says.
If she keeps winning medals, there will be more group hugs. And there will be a birthday party with a lot of hardware to celebrate.