Summer McIntosh flew back to Paris for Olympic closing ceremony
Summer McIntosh is back in Paris and is ready to march along with Canada at the Paris 2024 Olympic closing ceremony.
During these Olympics, the 17-year-old McIntosh became an overnight sensation throughout Canada. In her first time competing at the Games, she led the way with three gold medals and one silver. It turns out that her Paris experience is not quite over yet.
Canada’s Olympic team announced on social media this morning that McIntosh will be one of the country’s flagbearers alongside hammer throw gold medalist Ethan Katzberg at the closing ceremony, which is slated to start today at 3 pm ET/noon PT.
Both McIntosh and Katzberg are first-time Olympians.
Flag Bearers Announced 🇨🇦
The athletes that will carry the flag into the Stade de France on behalf of #TeamCanada are ones who have captured the hearts ❤️ of their teammates and the nation over the course of the Games: Summer McIntosh and Ethan Katzberg. https://t.co/XUz99J3QfD
— Team Canada (@TeamCanada) August 11, 2024
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind for McIntosh. The Toronto native picked up gold medals in the women’s 200-metre butterfly, 200-metre medley, and 400-metre medley Olympic events and a silver medal in the 400-metre freestyle.
After completing all her competitions, she flew back to Canada, where she got in a little bit of hot water with airport security, who didn’t recognize all the Olympic medals in her luggage.
McIntosh said she would be open to returning to Paris if named one of Canada’s flagbearers. CBC’s Devin Heroux reported that McIntosh kept true to that as she took an overnight flight from Toronto to return in time for today’s closing ceremony.
Summer McIntosh flew from Toronto to Paris overnight and has arrived in the Olympic city to carry the flag for Canada tonight with Ethan Katzberg.
It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks for McIntosh. Winning four swimming medals and now co-closing ceremony flag bearer.
— Devin Heroux (@Devin_Heroux) August 11, 2024
Katzberg will be by her side as Canada’s other closing ceremony flagbearer. The 22-year-old put Canada on the map in the world of hammer throwing after dominating the men’s final with a gold-medal winning throw of 84.12, just narrowly missing out on an Olympic record.
It was Canada’s first-ever gold medal in hammer throw, and the closest any other competitor got to Katzberg was a 79.97-metre throw from Hungarian silver medalist Bence Halasz. The BC native wasn’t the only Canadian to turn heads in hammer throw as Camryn Rogers helped sweep the gold for Canada in the women’s hammer throw just a few days later.
Katzberg and McIntosh will follow in the footsteps of decathlete Damian Warner, who acted as Canada’s closing ceremony flagbearer at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Swimmer Penny Oleksiak had the honours in Rio 2016.
It should be no surprise that Canada has chosen McIntosh and Katzberg as the flagbearers for the closing ceremony. Both of these athletes provided some of Canada’s most exciting highlights throughout the entire Olympics and have earned the opportunity to represent their country in such an exciting position.