McIntosh sets women's 400m freestyle world record

At the short-course Swimming World Championships in Budapest, the opening day witnessed an astonishing six world records broken.

The highlight of the night came from 18-year-old Canadian sensation Summer McIntosh, who electrified the crowd with her record-breaking performance in the women's 400m freestyle. McIntosh dominated the race, finishing with a time of 3:50.25, shattering the previous world record set by China's Li Bingjie in 2022.

From the outset, she set a blistering pace, consistently maintaining a lead that is two seconds ahead of the world record mark. This victory not only marked her first major competition following her three-gold medal performance at the Paris Olympics but also signified Canada's historic achievement as they claimed their first gold medal in this event at the World Championships.

In the women's 200m medley final, American swimmer Kate Douglass kept the momentum rolling, clocking in at 2:01.63 and breaking Katinka Hosszu's long-standing record of 2:01.86 from Doha 2014. 

In the women's 50m butterfly semifinal, Gretchen Walsh made history for USA by becoming the first woman to swim under 24 seconds, finishing in a blistering 23.94 seconds, ending Therese Alshammar's 2009 record of 24.38.

In the men's 50m butterfly semifinal, Switzerland's Noe Ponti also made waves by lowering his own world record, touching the wall at 21.43 seconds.

In the women's 4x100m freestyle relay, Walsh anchored the team to another stunning gold medal performance, clocking in at 3:25.01 and shattering Australia's previous world record of 3:25.43 set in Melbourne 2022. 

Following suit, the American men's 4x100m freestyle relay team also dominated the pool, finishing ahead of Italy and Poland in a new world record time of 3:01.66.

In the women's 100m backstroke semifinal, China's Qian Xin'an clocked in at 56.79 seconds to finish fifth, while teammate Zheng Huiyu followed closely behind in eighth with a time of 58.07 seconds. Despite their best efforts, both swimmers fell short of the required times to advance to the final of this event.