NANTERRE, France (AP) — After winning three gold medals and a silver swimming at the Paris Games, it's back to high school for Canadian teen sensation Summer McIntosh.
She will take some time to catch her breath and decompress back home in Ontario during a short break from the pool — and then she has a couple of courses left to complete her high school requirements this fall.
After earning her diploma, McIntosh will begin thinking about what's next, including where she will attend college.
One thing is already decided: It won't be for an NCAA program in the United States. McIntosh's mother, 1984 swimming Olympian Jill Horstead, said her daughter wants more flexibility in her training and meet schedule than American colleges provide.
Yet none of these big decisions are the first thing on the teenager's agenda. For months, McIntosh has been planning her 18th birthday party at the family cottage by a lake - her happy place.
Friends from home will be attending, along with some from Florida where she now trains. It's her golden birthday — she turns 18 on Aug. 18.
“It's going to be fun just to have some time off swimming and kind of take my mind off things,” she said. “Just kind of soak up all of what I've done here.”
Horstead says she is unlikely to relax and rest until after those festivities are over.
Her mom is proud of how McIntosh stays so balanced, making sure her social life remains a key part of her routine right along with swimming and school. It's different than how Horstead operated in her day.
“She's a very social teenager, she demands a fun side. I admire that in her,” the mother said. “She’s a teenage girl with a lot going on who can still have a lot of fun.”
They are all overjoyed with how a near-perfect week in Paris turned out. Horstead's sister, Kelly Draper, came along while her husband and two sons stayed home to decorate the house and host watch parties to cheer on McIntosh with more than 20 people.
Draper's experience in Paris instantly brought her back to the 1984 Games.
“Over the last four years, we've been waiting for this moment to come,” Draper said. “I remember 1984 like it was yesterday and just being there to cheer on my sister was one of the most special moments of my life. ... And now 40 years later, to be here with my sister cheering on her daughter, my niece, has been the most incredible experience of my life.”
McIntosh's only misses in France came in a trio of relays with the Canadians finishing fourth in each of the 4x100-meter medley, the 4x100 and 4x200.
She leaves with golds in her three individual events of the 400 and 200 individual medleys and the 200 butterfly — one that's a little more meaningful considering it was her mother's event. McIntosh earned silver in the 400 free.
“It's been some of the craziest days of my life,” McIntosh said, acknowledging that she is physically and emotionally spent. “Of course you're going to get tired, nine days of Olympic racing, but at the same time I've trained years, so I'm familiar with this kind of pain and exhaustion."
And she has her eyes on 2028.
“I'm already thinking about LA to be honest, I'm really excited."
Her father, Greg, knows it will take time for everything from France to sink in for the family.
“Still digesting all of it for sure. It’s been the focus for our family for the last three years since Tokyo. It’ll take a bit of time for it to come into focus and perspective, this year and the impact of what Summer has been able to do here," he said. “You’re bursting with pride and you’re thankful for all the support that she’s had. There’s a huge team behind Summer.”
An entire country as well.
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
Canada's Summer Mcintosh celebrates winning the gold medal in the women's 200-meter individual medley at the Summer Olympics in Nanterre, France, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
A teammate comforts Canada's Summer McIntosh at the end of the women's 4x100-meter medley relay final at the Summer Olympics in Nanterre, France, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
United States' Kate Douglass, Canada's Summer Mcintosh and Australia's Kaylee Mckeown pose with their medals during the awards ceremony for the women's 200-meter individual medley at the Summer Olympics in Nanterre, France, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Canada's Summer Mcintosh celebrates winning the gold medal in the women's 200-meter individual medley at the Summer Olympics in Nanterre, France, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)
What's in a name change, after all?
The water bordered by the Southern United States, Mexico and Cuba will be critical to shipping lanes and vacationers whether it’s called the Gulf of Mexico, as it has been for four centuries, or the Gulf of America, as President Donald Trump ordered this week. North America’s highest mountain peak will still loom above Alaska whether it’s called Mt. Denali, as ordered by former President Barack Obama in 2015, or changed back to Mt. McKinley as Trump also decreed.
But Trump's territorial assertions, in line with his “America First” worldview, sparked a round of rethinking by mapmakers and teachers, snark on social media and sarcasm by at least one other world leader. And though Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put the Trumpian “Gulf of America” on an official document and some other gulf-adjacent states were considering doing the same, it was not clear how many others would follow Trump's lead.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum joked that if Trump went ahead with the renaming, her country would rename North America “Mexican America.” On Tuesday, she toned it down: “For us and for the entire world it will continue to be called the Gulf of Mexico.”
Map lines are inherently political. After all, they're representations of the places that are important to human beings — and those priorities can be delicate and contentious, even more so in a globalized world.
There’s no agreed-upon scheme to name boundaries and features across the Earth.
“Denali” is the mountain's preferred name for Alaska Natives, while “McKinley" is a tribute to President William McKinley, designated in the late 19th century by a gold prospector. China sees Taiwan as its own territory, and the countries surrounding what the United States calls the South China Sea have multiple names for the same body of water.
The Persian Gulf has been widely known by that name since the 16th century, although usage of “Gulf” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many countries in the Middle East. The government of Iran — formerly Persia — threatened to sue Google in 2012 over the company’s decision not to label the body of water at all on its maps. Many Arab countries don’t recognize Israel and instead call it Palestine. And in many official releases, Israel calls the occupied West Bank by its biblical name, “Judea and Samaria.”
Americans and Mexicans diverge on what to call another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.
Trump's executive order — titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” — concludes thusly: “It is in the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes. The naming of our national treasures, including breathtaking natural wonders and historic works of art, should honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our Nation’s rich past.”
But what to call the gulf with the 3,700-mile coastline?
“It is, I suppose, an internationally recognized sea, but (to be honest), a situation like this has never come up before so I need to confirm the appropriate convention,” said Peter Bellerby, who said he was talking over the issue with the cartographers at his London company, Bellerby & Co. Globemakers. “If, for instance, he wanted to change the Atlantic Ocean to the American Ocean, we would probably just ignore it."
As of Wednesday night, map applications for Google and Apple still called the mountain and the gulf by their old names. Spokespersons for those platforms did not immediately respond to emailed questions.
A spokesperson for National Geographic, one of the most prominent map makers in the U.S., said this week that the company does not comment on individual cases and referred questions to a statement on its web site, which reads in part that it "strives to be apolitical, to consult multiple authoritative sources, and to make independent decisions based on extensive research.” National Geographic also has a policy of including explanatory notes for place names in dispute, citing as an example a body of water between Japan and the Korean peninsula, referred to as the Sea of Japan by the Japanese and the East Sea by Koreans.
In discussion on social media, one thread noted that the Sears Tower in Chicago was renamed the Willis Tower in 2009, though it's still commonly known by its original moniker. Pennsylvania's capital, Harrisburg, renamed its Market Street to Martin Luther King Boulevard and then switched back to Market Street several years later — with loud complaints both times. In 2017, New York's Tappan Zee Bridge was renamed for the late Gov. Mario Cuomo to great controversy. The new name appears on maps, but “no one calls it that,” noted another user.
“Are we going to start teaching this as the name of the body of water?” asked one Reddit poster on Tuesday.
“I guess you can tell students that SOME PEOPLE want to rename this body of water the Gulf of America, but everyone else in the world calls it the Gulf of Mexico,” came one answer. “Cover all your bases — they know the reality-based name, but also the wannabe name as well.”
Wrote another user: “I'll call it the Gulf of America when I'm forced to call the Tappan Zee the Mario Cuomo Bridge, which is to say never.”
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - Peter Bellerby, the founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, holds a globe at a studio in London, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
FILE - A boat is seen on the Susitna River near Talkeetna, Alaska, on Sunday, June 13, 2021, with Denali in the background. Denali, the tallest mountain on the North American continent, is located about 60 miles northwest of Talkeetna. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)
FILE - The water in the Gulf of Mexico appears bluer than usual off of East Beach, Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Galveston, Texas. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)