Summer McIntosh won her fourth gold medal of the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore with a dominant performance in the 400-meter individual medley.
The Canadian teenager finished in 4:25.78 to set a new championship record and cap off a near-perfect meet with five medals across her events.
American superstar Katie Ledecky is the only other woman to win as many golds at a single World Championships, while only Sweden’s Sarah Sjöström has matched McIntosh’s tally of five medals.
With her bronze medal in the 800-meter freestyle on Saturday, McIntosh fell just short of matching Michael Phelps’ record of five gold medals at a single World Championships.
“Overall, I’m happy with this World Championships,” McIntosh told CBC News. “I have to be, four golds is something that I’ve never achieved at the world stage before.
“I broke my kind of curse of three – everything comes in threes but now everything comes in fours, and hopefully, I can push for everything to come in fives.”
In Sunday’s 400-meter individual medley, the 18-year-old finished more than seven seconds clear of Australia’s Jenna Forrester and Japan’s Mio Narita, who tied for silver with a time of 4:33.26.
China’s 12-year-old Yu Zidi, who previously became the youngest medalist at the World Championships, was half a second outside the medals in fourth.
McIntosh now has 13 medals from the World Championships, including eight golds. In Singapore, she also took victories in the 400m freestyle, the 200m butterfly, and the 200m medley.
In the men’s 400m medley, France’s Léon Marchand won his second gold medal of the championships by completing a medley double.
His winning time of 4:04.73 saw him finish ahead of Japan’s Tomoyuki Matsushita and Russian Ilia Borodin in second and third respectively, claiming his seventh career gold at the World Championships.
