Summer Mcintosh wins 2 in Fort Lauderdale, eyes July Trials
summer mcintosh won twice at the Fort Lauderdale Open, then put the rest of her season in plain terms: July and August are still ahead, and the work is not finished. After beating Katie Ledecky in the 400 free and taking the 200 free in 1:54.36, she said, “It’s a long summer, Pan Pacs isn’t until mid-August, so we’ve got a lot more training blocks until then.”
Fort Lauderdale Open
McIntosh’s 400 free win came down to the closing strokes, and the 200 free followed in 1:54.36. Those two races gave her a clean result line in Fort Lauderdale, but they also left her talking more about the grind ahead than the times she posted in the pool.
In the 200 free, she said she came away wanting more. “I was a bit disappointed with my time… I love racing in this pool, it’s a great vibe, but I don’t know, I just thought I would be a bit stronger coming off Westmont, going at 1:53.8, I was hoping to be around that again.”
Bob Bowman and Westmont
That reaction fits the comparison she set herself. Her 1:53.80 from Westmont ranks as the second-fastest performer in the world this season, while Mollie O’Callaghan’s 1:53.52 is the fastest 200 free time in the world this season mentioned in the article. Against that standard, 1:54.36 landed short of what McIntosh expected from herself.
Bob Bowman coaches McIntosh, and the next phase of work is already lined up. She said, “We’re going back up to the OTC in a couple weeks, so that’ll be lots of hard training and lots of fun, so just in deep training and going to continue to be in that until August.”
Canadian Trials and Pan Pacs
The schedule she laid out keeps the emphasis on training blocks before the next major meets. McIntosh said the Canadian Trials are in July, and Pan Pacs are in August. That leaves a long stretch between Fort Lauderdale and the meet in mid-August she mentioned.
For now, the immediate takeaway is simple: McIntosh left Florida with two wins, but not a finished season. She is still in the middle of a heavy training phase, and the next time she matters most will come after more work, not after a celebration lap in Fort Lauderdale.
