SINGAPORE – Summer McIntosh opened the World Aquatics Championships Sunday in Singapore by completing step one of her quest for five gold medals.
The Toronto teenager led the women’s 400-m freestyle start to finish, winning her first world title in the event in a time of 3:56.26. She extended her Canadian-best career gold medal total to five at long-course worlds, and with her ninth medal overall moved into a tie with Kylie Masse and Penny Oleksiak for most ever by a Canadian.
McIntosh walked straight off the deck to get ready for her 200-m individual medley semifinal, which came half an hour later. Her time of 2:07.39 qualified her for Monday’s final in top spot.
“While preparing mentally for this world championships, I think tonight was my biggest night of the whole meet. So to come out with a gold medal and a really good strong semifinal in the 200 IM, I’m really happy,” said McIntosh, 18, the world record holder in both events.
Trois-Rivières, Que., native Mary-Sophie Harvey, who swims with coach Greg Arkhurst at Montreal’s CAMO club, advanced to the 200 IM final in sixth with a time of 2:10.19.
“Time-wise, still some work to do,” said Harvey, who made the team with a personal best 2:08.78 at the Canadian Swimming Trials in June. “I’ve got 24 hours to work on that, then hopefully down to a best time or close to what I was at Trials and then fight for a medal.”
In other semifinal action, Montreal native Ilya Kharun just missed the men’s 50-m butterfly final, his time of 22.92 an agonizing 0.01 outside the Top 8. Toronto’s Josh Liendo finished 13th in 23.11, his second personal best of the day.
Liendo was also part of the men’s 4×100-m freestyle relay that finished eighth, teaming with Ruslan Gaziev, Antoine Sauve and Filip Senc-Samardzic for a time of 3:12.89 in the final after going 3:12.64 in their morning prelim.
Also in the morning prelims, Ethan Ekk made his senior team debut by dropping more than three seconds from his best time to finish 9th in the men’s 400-m free (3:46.01).
The women’s 4×100 free relay team of Brooklyn Douthwright, Taylor Ruck, Sienna Angove and Ingrid Wilm) just missed the final, finishing ninth in a time of 3:37.50. Douthwright, from Riverview, N.B., also swam a personal best 59.25 to finish 26th in the women’s 100-m butterfly.
The eight-day pool competition continues through Aug. 3 (Singapore time) at the 4,800-seat World Aquatics Championships Arena, with morning prelims taking place the evening before in Canadian time zones.
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.tv platform: https://ici.tou.tv/section/sports with French commentary by Benoît Huot and René Pothier.
CBC TV will air broadcast shows Sunday, July 27, from noon-1 p.m. ET, Saturday, Aug. 2, from 4-6 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 3 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 will join The Ready Room show live on YouTube every day after finals, with Brittany MacLean Campbell hosting from Toronto. The show will include Canadian highlights, athlete interviews and analysis. The show page 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 are 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