The World Swimming Championships that start this weekend are headlined by an expected showdown unlike any in the history of the sport.
Katie Ledecky wants to become the first swimmer to win a seventh world title in one event. Summer McIntosh wants to become the second swimmer — after Michael Phelps — to win five individual gold medals at a single worlds.
Only one of those feats can happen at this meet in Singapore.
Ledecky, the most decorated female swimmer ever, and McIntosh, an 18-year-old Canadian quickly rising up the all-time ranks, are expected to face off in the most anticipated race of worlds — the 800m freestyle final on Aug. 2, the penultimate day of the eight-day competition.
Some time during McIntosh’s training in France this year, she and coach Fred Vergnoux had what he called a long-term planning conversation.
They talked about the 800m free, an event McIntosh had dropped from her own jam-packed major meet schedule after placing 11th at the Tokyo Olympics as a 14-year-old. McIntosh is now the world’s best all-around swimmer, dominating shorter events.
Ledecky won the 800m free in Tokyo, just as she did in London and Rio and would do in Paris.
In 2028, she can become the first swimmer to win the same Olympic event for a fifth time — a point also brought up between McIntosh and Vergnoux.
“Perhaps Summer would be the one who wanted to challenge that,” Vergnoux said.
McIntosh accepted the challenge a bit early, for these World Championships.
She will face Ledecky in not only the 400m free, where they shared the podium at the 2022 Worlds and 2024 Olympics, but also in the 800m free — Ledecky’s trademark event.
“There were many reasons why I picked the 800m,” McIntosh said, citing not only the chance to race Ledecky, but also because it slotted in well for her own schedule of five individual events. “I think it’s, in my opinion, the biggest challenge.”
Ledecky lowered her own world record three months ago and has just one 800m free final defeat in the last 15 years (more than 60 wins).
McIntosh is responsible for that blemish. In February 2024, she beat Ledecky by 5.73 seconds at a local meet in Orlando. Both trained in Florida at the time (Ledecky still does).
“Me beating her in the 800m, and it being a shock to the swimming world, I think says way more about her than it says about me,” McIntosh said in reverence.
McIntosh grew up with a quote from Ledecky on her bedroom wall. She has repeatedly said that Ledecky has “revolutionized” swimming.
“It’s always a great race when we’re next to each other,” Ledecky said after their most recent head-to-head, when she overtook McIntosh to win a 400m free on May 1 in her second-best time ever.
McIntosh’s competitive hunger was apparent when she reflected on her Paris Olympic performance: gold medals in the 200m and 400m individual medleys and 200m butterfly and silver in the 400m free behind Australian Ariarne Titmus.
“I wanted to get four golds,” she began her answer in a spring interview.
Overall, McIntosh said she was “super happy” with how things turned out, albeit “a bit disappointed” with the runner-up in the 400m free.
She started working with Vergnoux after Christmas — cross-training included her first time cross-country skiing.
She opted to go from four individual events in Paris to five both at these worlds and at the 2028 LA Games. She hasn’t decided yet if her 2028 schedule will also include the 800m free or a different fifth event.
The only swimmer to win five individual events at one Olympics or worlds is Phelps. The legend FaceTimed McIntosh after last month’s Canadian trials. He congratulated her on becoming the first swimmer to break a world record in three different individual events at one meet since his 2008 Beijing Games masterpiece.
McIntosh did not break Ledecky’s 800m free world record at trials, but she did post the third-fastest time in history. Her 8:05.07 was 95 hundredths off the world record. The two combine for the 15 fastest times in history: 13 for Ledecky, two for McIntosh.
"(Ledecky) always brings the best out of me, which is also why I’m never nervous before a race (with her) because I know it’s going to be a fight to the end,” McIntosh said. “I’m going to have the best result because she’s going to push me to do it.”
