McIntosh says narrowly missing Phelps feat keeps her 'hungry' for LA / Photo: Oli SCARFF - AFP
McIntosh says narrowly missing Phelps feat keeps her 'hungry' for LA
Summer McIntosh said Sunday that falling one gold short of a clean sweep of five titles at swimming's world championships will keep her "hungry" on the road to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The 18-year-old Canadian dominated in Singapore but had to settle for bronze in her epic showdown with American great Katie Ledecky in the 800m freestyle final.
That stopped her from joining Michael Phelps as the only swimmer to win five individual gold medals at one world championships.
McIntosh rounded the week off with a fourth gold on Sunday in a dominant victory in the 400m individual medley.
She said she "learned more than any other meet ever" in Singapore and vowed to use it to fuel her bid for more success at the LA Games.
"The thing I learnt from the most was the bronze in the 800 freestyle, that's going to keep me hungry moving into next season and on to LA," she said.
"Overall, happy with my meet but always wanting more. Even if I were to get five golds, I would still want more, that's just my mentality."
World record holder McIntosh gave another demonstration of her prodigious talent in the 400m IM, romping to victory in a championships-record 4min 25.78sec.
Australia's Jenna Forrester and Japan's Mio Narita shared silver (4:33.26).
"I'm going to take notes on the plane on what I can keep improving on," said McIntosh.
"There's so many positive things from this meet and those are the things I'm going to remember, and the negatives I'm going to apply to next season and see how well I can fix them."
McIntosh won three golds and a silver at the Paris Games a year ago.
- Schoolgirl just misses out again -
China's 12-year-old Yu Zidi was narrowly out of the medals in fourth in 4:33.76.
Huge cheers went up for her from the large number of Chinese fans as she entered the arena for the final on Sunday, the last day of competition.
Yu this week became the youngest swimmer in history to win a world championships medal with bronze in the women's 4x200m freestyle relay.
She came fourth in all three of her individual races.
But not everyone thinks Yu should be competing in Singapore.
Some in the sport have raised questions about the mental and physical impacts of high-level training and competing at an age when she is still developing as a person.
Under current World Aquatics rules, the minimum age is 14 but younger swimmers can compete at the championships if -- like Yu -- they are fast enough.
(F.Skosana--TPT)
