Canadian swimmer Summer McIntosh broke the longest-standing individual women's swimming world record on Sunday night at the Montreal Olympic pool.
She finished the 200-meter butterfly in 2 minutes, 1.65 seconds during the Canadian trials.
The 19-year-old, who won three gold medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics, eclipsed the previous benchmark of 2:01.81 set by China's Liu Zige in 2009.
Liu's record was established during the high-tech "super-suit" era, months before polyurethane suits were banned.
McIntosh had previously come within 0.18 seconds of the record at the 2025 world championships with a time of 2:01.99.
Sunday's performance marked her first competitive appearance before home fans since relocating her training base to Austin, Texas, to work with coach Bob Bowman.
"As you can see my emotions, this is the absolute world to me," said McIntosh after the race.
"Growing up this is the one world record I thought I would never break and to do it tonight is really special in front of a home crowd."
She expressed excitement about the atmosphere in Montreal, which gave her an adrenaline boost at the start of the competition.
"It means the absolute world and I'm in shock right now," McIntosh added.
The triumph adds a fourth individual long-course world record to her collection, joining her marks in the 200-meter individual medley, 400-meter individual medley, and 400-meter freestyle.
"To be honest, as soon as I dove in I felt absolutely incredible," McIntosh said via CBC. "The crowd just got my adrenaline going.
… I went out pretty fast and I think I just held on very well."
Reflecting on the historical significance, she acknowledged the difficulty of overcoming the 15-year-old standard.
"This is probably, in my opinion, one of the hardest world records in the books, on the women's side at least," she said.
"To now break it, it's just very surreal."
McIntosh will continue at the Canadian trials with the 400-meter individual medley on Monday, followed by the 400-meter freestyle on Tuesday, and the 200-meter individual medley on Wednesday.
She will then compete at the Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine, California.
