Summer McIntosh during a heat in the women's 200-metre butterfly at on July 31, in Nanterre.David J. Phillip/The Associated Press
Summer McIntosh is a newly minted Olympic gold medalist. But with several high-stakes races still to come at the Paris Olympics, the 17-year-old swimmer has been perfecting other crucial skills away from the water.
“I’m a professional napper at this point,” McIntosh said Wednesday. “It kind of becomes a skill that you learn.”
Behind the scenes at the Olympics, McIntosh and her coach are engaged in an around-the-clock mission like no other.
With McIntosh contending for as many as five or six medals in Paris, every second of rest, relaxation and recuperation is crucial. Each race depends on it.
About a year ago, her coach, Brent Arckey, drew up the Olympic schedule on a piece of paper, and the two began plotting out how many races she could possibly swim in nine days, including heats, semi-finals and finals, and how they could maximize every minute in between.
From eating, to napping, to sleeping, to warm ups, cool downs and massages, no moment is wasted. Even the time she spends on her feet is watched closely.
It is part art, part science, and a logistical nightmare all wrapped into one.
But resting is as important as racing.
McIntosh says mental fatigue almost tops physical because 'the body does what the mind believes.'Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters
“It’s all about outside the pool right now,” McIntosh said Wednesday, after a rare scheduled day off from racing on Tuesday.
That short respite came after she won gold in the 400-metre individual medley Monday, and silver in the 400-metre freestyle on Saturday, two excruciating races that blur the lines between sprint and endurance event.
“I know once I dive in, I’m good, but it’s really important to recover as best as possible in between races.”
Paris Olympics: Canada’s Summer McIntosh advances to 200-metre butterfly semifinals in Paris
She has two individual races still to go, including the 200-metre butterfly final on Thursday and the 200-metre individual medley on Saturday. She will also likely be called upon to swim a few relays for Canada before the meet ends Sunday.
It’s a lot of yardage, as they say in swimming. In total, she’ll swim about three kilometres during the Paris Olympics.
Asked recently what she does between one session and the next, McIntosh listed off a series of items in rapid succession, including but not limited to: dry off, eat as soon as possible, get a massage, take a nice long nap, eat again, then back to the pool, then more rest, more food, stay off your feet, drink lots of water, then more sleep.
Few people are as busy at resting as McIntosh these days.
Her mom, Jill, who swam for Canada at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, said swimming has become so sophisticated that races are won by the slimmest of margins, which are not always decided by what happens in between the lane markers.
“The Olympics is won as much outside the pool as inside the pool now, because everyone is spectacular inside the pool,” Jill McIntosh said.
“It’s how much you are willing to really take care of yourself outside the pool. It’s very, very strategic and methodical,” she said. “It’s fun competing, but you just have to be super, super disciplined.”
Few people are as busy at resting as McIntosh these days.Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
That’s not easy after winning your first gold medal. “It’s hard after all the adrenalin and excitement,” Summer admitted. She has made a point not to break her focus, though. That means no celebrating before the Olympics are over, and no social media, even after her big win.
“Definitely trying to stay in the zone as much as possible and not get too caught up in the past,” she said.
The sheer number of races McIntosh will compete in is not necessarily the problem. She could have contended for the podium in two additional events, the 800-metre freestyle and the 200-metre freestyle, if she only had enough time to rest and recover. Instead, McIntosh and Arckey decided to sit those ones out, potentially leaving medals on the table, so she could be fresh for the others.
McIntosh’s races last between two and four minutes, depending on the event, but what happens around them is extensive. The problem, as Jill explains, is that every race is a session at the pool.
“What happens is you’re at the pool at least five or six hours per session,” Jill said. “So that’s what causes the exhaustion by Day 9.”
Plus there’s semi-finals and, in some events, morning heats as well.
All swimmers think about recovery, and many of them attack it with the same fervour they give their races.
Brent Hayden, who won bronze in the 100-metre freestyle for Canada at the 2012 London Olympics, said the grind of a meet can sneak up on swimmers. The toll is not just physical, but also mental.
“You could get neurologically burned out,” Hayden said. “You can recover muscularly, like, good cool down, eat lots of carbs, get the glycogen stores back up. But once you get into that neurological fatigue it can take a long time to recover from that.”
And when the brain gets exhausted, reaction times suffer. In swimming, that’s the difference between winning or losing.
“It’s just how quickly your muscles can fire. Just the signal from the brain to the muscles and how quickly they can respond,” Hayden said. “I’ve hit that before. I feel fine, but everything is just a little bit sluggish. But we’re in a sport that’s measured by hundredths of a second.”
McIntosh, who trained with Hayden on the Canadian team before the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, agrees about the psychological impact of fatigue.
“I think mental almost tops physical in some ways,” she said recently. “The body does what the mind believes for sure.”
It’s something she went into Paris already focusing on.
“That’s not talked about enough to be honest,” McIntosh said. “The whole process in between that two- to four-minute race.”