On the opening night of the Canadian Swimming Trials in Montreal, 19-year-old Summer McIntosh did something the sport had been waiting more than 16 years to see: she erased the last world record left over from swimming's controversial "super-suit era."
McIntosh won the women's 200m butterfly in 2:01.65, shaving 0.16 seconds off the mark of 2:01.81 that China's Liu Zige had set in 2009 — the year of the high-tech polyurethane racing suits that were banned soon after because they gave swimmers so much buoyancy and compression that world records fell in nearly every event of the world championships. Textile-only rules have applied ever since, and one by one all of the super-suit marks were rewritten by swimmers in ordinary swimsuits. All except the women's 200 butterfly, which stood defiantly on the books for 6,101 days.
Until July 5, 2026.
"This is something that I've been working on for a really long time," McIntosh said afterward. "Getting so close after the World Championships in Singapore, and then it became a possibility. To now do it on the first day of Trials is a great way to kick off the meet."
The swim was a masterclass in pacing. McIntosh opened aggressively with a 27.45 first 50, hit the halfway mark in 58.21 and turned into the final 50 in 1:29.73, exactly on world-record pace. In the closing lap, with the arena on its feet, she brought it home in 31.92 to touch the wall at 2:01.65. The scoreboard flashed the letters WR and the crowd erupted.
McIntosh said she felt the moment building as the race unfolded. "The crowd was always loud throughout the whole race, but I could tell on the last 50 that I must have been close to world-record pace," she said.
For a swimmer whose trophy shelf already includes three Olympic gold medals from Paris 2024, two world championship titles in the event, and world records in the 200m and 400m individual medleys and the 400m freestyle, this particular mark carried special weight. It had been her white whale since she was a kid. "That was the one world record I've always dreamed of as a kid," McIntosh said. "In the past few years especially, really wanting to break it. I think it's so fast, so to now do it is really incredible."
The symbolism of the swim goes beyond McIntosh's own résumé. The super-suit era of 2008–2009 remains a strange chapter in swimming history. In 2008 alone, 108 world records were set. At the 2009 world championships in Rome, 43 more fell in a single week. The suits were then outlawed, and for years afterward some of those records looked untouchable, particularly on the women's side, where the technological advantage had been especially pronounced. Sport officials, coaches and swimmers spent more than a decade quietly wondering whether the women's 200 fly mark would ever come down through legal means.
McIntosh made it look almost inevitable. She now holds world records in four events, spanning three disciplines — the 400m freestyle, the 200m and 400m individual medleys, and the 200m butterfly.
There was other strong Canadian swimming that night. Mary-Sophie Harvey finished second in the 200 fly in 2:10.15, with Clare Watson third in 2:12.58. In the women's 100m backstroke, Taylor Ruck out-touched Kylie Masse for her first title of the meet, and Lorne Wigginton produced a powerful negative split to win the men's 200m freestyle in 1:47.37. But the night — and, arguably, this generation of Canadian swimming — belonged to McIntosh.
The Trials in Montreal serve as the qualification meet for this summer's Pan Pacific Swimming Championships. McIntosh will race several more events across the week, and the question in every heat is not whether she wins, but by how much and how close to another world record she gets.
For now, though, the record book simply reads a little cleaner. The last visible fingerprint of the super-suit era has been wiped away, replaced by the name of a 19-year-old from Toronto who has spent most of her young life quietly hunting exactly this mark.
