"Whole time was such a blur" - Summer McIntosh gives honest take on Paris Olympics journey as she reflects on returning to Games after brief home trip

Summer McIntosh has reflected on her time at the 2024 Paris Olympics, sharing her overall experience and how she had to return to the Games after returning to Canada for a brief period. In Paris, she emerged as the most accomplished Canadian athlete in a single Olympic edition by winning three gold and one silver medal.

In a recent interview, McIntosh elaborated on her Paris Olympics campaign and revealed that she had returned home for a few days after her competitions were over and had to travel back to the Games.

This was because she was announced as the joint flag-bearer for Canada for the closing ceremony. McIntosh opened up on the overall Olympics experience during her recent appearance on the Unfiltered Waters Podcast, saying (19:20 onwards):

“Racing in front of all those people was absolutely incredible. It was something that I think I really fed off of and I got a lot of adrenaline from it. But overall, the village was super cool…I think the pool was absolutely beautiful and obviously very fast, so it was just so cool.

“Overall, it was such an amazing experience. And going back for flag bearer was also probably one of the coolest, probably the coolest moment of my life and such an honor as well. And sharing that with Ethan [Katzberg] was also really cool. Overall, that was absolutely incredible, and that whole time was such a blur. I think partially because there was a time change. So I went back to Canada for acutally four days, four nights and then I was back in Paris," McIntosh added during the podcast.

She described it as a "blur" due to her hectic travel schedule. She returned to Canada following the conclusion of her events to celebrate her victory with friends but made the trip back to Paris while dealing with jet lag. She explained that everything happened so quickly that it was difficult for her to process it.

Summer McIntosh on being recognized as emerging leader despite being 18 years old

Summer McIntosh at the Paris Olympics (Photo: Getty Images)

McIntosh expressed her thoughts on being recognized as an emerging leader after being honored by Time Magazine as part of the ‘2024 TIME100 Next’ list. In an October 2024 interview with CBC Sports, the Canadian swimmer revealed that she was honored with the feat (2:31 onwards):

“I'm just honored to be on the list but it also gives me extra motivation and kind of a responsibility just to try and inspire as many younger kids as possible. That's always kind of been a goal of mine in the sport to leave something behind that someone else could be inspired to continue on,” said McIntosh.

She also mentioned that making it to the list was "cool" but the most meaningful part for her was to be able to inspire people.

For her remarkable achievements at the Olympics and World Short Course Championships among other notable events in 2024, she was awarded the World Aquatics Female Swimmer of the Year.