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By Steve Keating
PARIS (Reuters) - Canadian teenager Summer McIntosh grabbed her first Olympic medal, taking silver in the women's 400 metres freestyle on Saturday, but had precious little time to savour the moment before diving back into the La Defense pool less than an hour later.
McIntosh realised the Olympic potential that was promised at the Tokyo Games three years ago, where she narrowly missed out on a podium and came home fourth at the age of just 14.
She comes to Paris still a fresh-faced 17-year-old - but also a battle-hardened four-time world champion and 400 individual medley world record holder.
That talent came to life on the Olympic stage on Saturday as the Canadian teen pushed Australia's Ariarne Titmus all the way to the gold and finished ahead of American great Katie Ledecky in a showdown that had been hyped as the women's "Race of the Century".
"It's definitely pretty surreal. Going into tonight I really just wanted to put my best foot forward and race as hard as I could, and overall I'm pretty happy with the result," McIntosh told reporters.
"I mean an Olympics is always pretty nerve-wracking and there's a lot of anticipation going into each race, so kind of learning how to deal with that and also trying to feed off the crowd is something that I've kept learning the past few years."
McIntosh barely had a moment to soak in the cheers and what she had done in the 400m as she immediately began mentally preparing for the 4x100m relay, where she just missed out on a second medal with Canada coming home fourth.
She is nevertheless expected to be gracing more Paris podiums as she is scheduled to compete in three more individual events - the 200m butterfly and the 200m and 400m individual medleys - as well as relays.
"I definitely tried to appreciate the moment as much as I could because Olympic medals don't come around too often," said McIntosh. "At the same time I had to mentally and physically prepare myself going into the relay because I only had around 30 minutes.
"So I was kind of trying to appreciate it but then kind of flip the switch and get right back into race mode."
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Paris; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
