Summer McIntosh’s pursuit of five individual gold medals at the 2028 Summer Olympics faces a new challenge due to a recent change in the event schedule. The adjustment has led to scheduling conflicts that will impact the Canadian swimming star’s competition choices.

One of the significant changes is the scheduling of the women’s 200m butterfly and 800m freestyle events back-to-back on the final day of swimming competition. This alteration has effectively ruled out McIntosh’s participation in the 800m freestyle event, despite her strong performance and potential for gold in Los Angeles.

Although McIntosh, a 19-year-old from Toronto and a three-time world champion, is the reigning Olympic champion in the 200m butterfly, she also recorded the second-fastest time ever in the women’s 800m freestyle at the Canadian trials in June.

Byron MacDonald, the head swimming coach at the University of Toronto, highlighted that while the new schedule doesn’t hinder McIntosh’s goal of competing for five gold medals in L.A., it does shift the focus to her likely fifth event, the 200m freestyle.

McIntosh is expected to compete in the 200m individual medley, 400m IM, 200m fly, and 400m freestyle events. The conflicts with her other potential events, the 800m freestyle and 200m backstroke, have made them unfeasible due to scheduling clashes with her gold medal attempts.

The tentative lineup projection for McIntosh at the 2028 Olympics includes events spread over several days, starting with the 400m freestyle final on July 22.

In a significant change, the opening day of the 2028 Summer Games will feature women’s 100m sprint events instead of swimming. This adjustment will see all three rounds of the women’s 100 meters take place at the LA Coliseum on July 15, providing a busy start to the Games for the world’s fastest female athletes. The decision to lead off with track and field instead of swimming was made due to logistical challenges related to setting up the pool at SoFi Stadium after the opening ceremony.