“We will hear about Summer McIntosh for a very long time”

For eight months, Summer McIntosh carefully has been preparing what could become one of the most striking summers in the history of Canadian sport.

The Swimming Star is not targeting anything less than five gold medals at the world championships presented in Singapore, a feat hitherto accomplished by a single swimmer: Michael Phelps.

To maximize its chances, the Toronto prodigy surrounded itself with an exceptional coach, Fred Vergnoux, a French technician at the impressive international course.

Interim coach of McIntosh since the start of the year, Vergnoux puts his expertise at the service of the young athlete in order to bring him to a new summit.

Guest of the show It looks at ushe returned to this intense and demanding collaboration, which he describes asVery strong, very moving experience.

I am very proud to have been able to help Summer, even a little bit, in his careerhe says.

The coach has no doubt about the potential of his protégé.

I think we will hear about Summer McIntosh for a long time.

The best is to come

With several records and medals in his pocket, Summer McIntosh regularly makes the front page. But for Fred Vergnoux, the story is just beginning.

Summer is only 18 years old, but she has the maturity of a swimmer of 25, 26 years old. Sometimes we forget that she is so young.

Vergnoux is not the type to be enthusiastic so easily. In more than 20 years, he has led the national selections of Great Britain, Spain and Belgium, accompanied his athletes to six Olympic medals, 22 in the world and 38 European, and carried out Mireia Belmonte to the podiums in London, in 2012, and Rio, in 2016.

Early talents, he saw them. But rarely a phenomenon like McIntosh. The young swimmer, from the age of 14, already represented Canada at the Tokyo Games in 2021. Two years later, she won her first world titles in Budapest.

Without lacking respect for anyone, its level is much higher than other swimmers.

Despite its ease in the race, McIntosh still swims far from its limits. His youth offers him an immense margin of progression, and it is there, according to Vergnoux, that his greatest strength resides.

But also her advantage is precisely that she remains young. She has a lot of innocence. She still has a lot to learn. I think its margin of progression is very, very large.

Specialist in the 400 m four swimming, of which she holds the world record, McIntosh is also among the best in the 200 m butterfly and the 400 m freestyle.

But talent does not exclude work. According to Vergnoux, certain aspects remain to be refined, in particular the breaststroke, a segment still vulnerable in the combined events, and the strategic management of a program as demanding as that of the Singapore Worlds.

Dominant over the distances of 200 and 400 m, McIntosh has little to prove to his opponents. Now, his struggle is played out elsewhere, against itself, against history. At only 18, she already has six world records, a extremely rare feat in the history of female swimming.

However, there remains an ultimate reference: Katie LEDECKY, 28, holding 22 world titles (including six in a row over 1500 m) and nine Olympic gold medals.

But legend or not, McIntosh is determined to dethrone the queen with long distances. And for Fred Vergnoux, this is no longer a question of andmore than When.

A champion mentality

I think Summer works like that. She could easily have decided to do the 200 m back in place of the 800 m, she could have made the 200 m freestyle toounderlined the coach of McIntosh.

It is in the difficulty that she finds motivation.

From the start of 2025, the objectives were clear. Summer McIntosh also publicly expressed his ambition to win five medals at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.

It was almost a joke with her, precisely, I said to her: ” But you’re not going to let Ledecky become five times Olympic champion in 2028! ”says Vergnoux.

The character of the champion is exactly that is to be able to get out of his comfort zone. It is to give ourselves objectives that one can think impossible to achieve. This daily competitive spirit is what marks the difference among high -level athleteshe adds.

This obsession with overcoming was strikingly distinguished itself last Thursday, during the 200 m butterfly final at the Singapore Worlds. McIntosh, several seconds ahead of his opponents, arrives easily in first place in the event.

On the way to a seventh world record, she touched the wall at 2 min 01.99 s, or only 18 hundredths of the reference time established in 2009 by the Chinese Liu Zige.

Liu Zige’s record has been holding for almost 16 years, making it one of the oldest still active in female swimming. This is the one McIntosh dreamed the most to drop, said Vergnoux.

On Sunday, the Canadian prodigy will try the impossible: winning five individual gold medals at the same world championships.

But whether the feat is materialized or not, the collaboration between Fred Vergnoux and Summer McIntosh ends in Singapore. The swimmer will turn the page, without slowing down.

Direction the Texas, where she will join Bob Bowman, the one who had guided the legendary Michael Phelps around 23 Olympic medals.