SINGAPORE – Canada added two medals to its total Saturday at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.
Summer McIntosh earned bronze in the women’s 800-m freestyle race, an instant classic. American legend Katie Ledecky won her record seventh gold in the event, setting a championship record of 8:05.62, followed by Australian Lani Pallister (8:05.98) and McIntosh (8:07.29).
The 18-year-old from Toronto, who has three gold medals already, became the first Canadian to earn four individual medals at a single world championships. She has already surpassed Ryan Cochrane’s record of eight career individual medals, increasing her total to 10. It was not the colour she was hoping for, however, as her bid to match Michael Phelps’s record of five gold medals came to an end.
“Obviously that’s not even close to what I wanted time-wise, place-wise, how I executed the race. I want to say congrats to Katie of course and Lani, they had amazing swims, but that’s not what I wanted myself individually,” said McIntosh, who beat Ledecky in the 400 freestyle on Day 1 and has also won the 200-m individual medley and 200-m butterfly here.
“I hate losing more than I like winning and I think that’s a mentality that I’ve carried with myself throughout my entire career,” McIntosh said. “That’s really what gets my hand on the wall first most of the time. The feeling right now is something that I never want to feel again.”
It was the second bronze of the night for Canada. After facing frustration earlier in the championships, Montreal native Ilya Kharun broke through for his first ever medal at world long-course championships. The 20-year-old double Olympic medallist’s personal best time of 50.07 was good for bronze in the men’s 100-m butterfly.
“I’m so happy, I think it was well deserved,” said Kharun, who missed the 50-m butterfly final by 0.01 then finished fourth in the 200 by 0.17. “It was really frustrating and I’m just happy I got it.”
Toronto’s Josh Liendo was just 0.02 behind in fourth. The pair shared a historic podium at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, with Liendo taking silver and Kharun bronze, the first time two Canadian men stood on an Olympic swimming podium together.
“Josh is an amazing competitor and he’s a very strong swimmer. I told him when we finished, ‘I wish I could have shared it with you.’ Double podium again would have been great. But I’m glad that we can still keep pushing each other,” Kharun said.
Liendo, who already has a bronze here as part of the 4×100-m mixed medley relay, was also part of Canada’s sixth-place mixed 4×100-m freestyle relay. The team of Ruslan Gaziev, Liendo, Mary-Sophie Harvey and Taylor Ruck combined for a time of 3:23.16.
In other action Saturday, Kelowna, B.C., native Ruck finished 10th in the women’s 50-m freestyle (24.53.)
McIntosh still has two impressive accomplishments within her grasp entering the final day of the eight-day championships.
Ledecky, who accomplished the feat at the 2015 edition in Kazan, Russia, is the only woman to win four gold at long-course worlds, and Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom is the only swimmer besides Phelps to win five individual medals, with a gold, two silver and two bronze in 2019.
McIntosh enters the 400-m individual medley as a two-time world champion, Olympic champion and world record holder.
“At this point I’m thinking about the 400 IM. I’m not done yet,” she said.
Canada has seven medals (three gold, four bronze) through seven days of competition at the 4,800-seat World Aquatics Championships Arena.
CBC Gem and CBC Sports are streaming prelims with international commentary live every day starting at 9:45 p.m. ET, with finals webcasts beginning at 6:45 a.m. ET. All streams can be found at this link: https://www.cbc.ca/player/sports/live
Radio-Canada Sports is broadcasting the swimming events on its Tou.tvplatform: https://ici.tou.tv/section/sports with French commentary by Benoît Huot and René Pothier.
CBC TV will air broadcast shows Saturday from 4-6 p.m. and Sunday from 2-3 p.m., with key races called by Rob Snoek and Byron MacDonald, as well as a post-event wrap-up show on Saturday, Aug. 9 from 4-6 p.m.
Reporter Devin Heroux is on site in the mixed zone speaking to Canadians following their races, and is joining The Ready Room show live on YouTube every day after finals, with Brittany MacLean Campbell hosting from Toronto. The show, including Canadian highlights, athlete interviews and analysis, can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDsQU3UFA4hWNpRkQUQ9V2q1weYX0Z5tT
Swimming Canada and @cbcolympics are also posting content across their digital platforms.
Nearly 2,500 athletes from 206 registered countries have been competing across six aquatic sports at Singapore 2025. A record 77 medal events will be contested, with a record prize money pool of more than $6 million US, in addition to a $30,000 world record bonus in swimming.
Full results: https://www.omegatiming.com/2025/world-aquatics-championships-swm-live-results