The history-making Canadian swimming sensation experiencing a summer like no other

Paris (CNN) — What have you been up to so far in the summer?

Exploring the world? Learning a new language? Taking in the sights and sounds of music festivals?

How about rewriting the history books to become your country’s first ever triple champion at a single Olympic Games?

And, if that’s not enough, being personally congratulated by some of the world’s most recognizable political leaders?

This has been no ordinary summer; this has been the season of Canadian swimming sensation Summer McIntosh.

“It’s hard to sum up all what has happened in the past nine days,” the 17-year-old told CNN Sport’s Amanda Davies in Paris.

“I got to talk to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for a second time in a week, which is insane. I literally would never think that would ever happen,” she explains after he also called following the first of her three gold medals.

“It’s just an honor to know that we have his support. It means the world. … It’s just absolutely incredible for him to be the one to communicate that to me.”

The making of a summer like no other for McIntosh has been years in the making.

Just three years ago, the then 14-year-old beat Canadian legend Penny Oleksiak at the Olympic trials to book her place on the Canadian Olympic team.

Olympic champion Oleksiak later said of McIntosh: “I love Summer. I hate training with Summer. She does not die […] I know she has the gas on and it’s all gas, no brakes with her. I love her work ethic. She’s really strong in and out of the pool mentally.”

A matter of months later, McIntosh was competing at Tokyo 2020 as the youngest Canadian at the Games, where she narrowly missed out on a podium, finishing fourth in the 400m freestyle.

The fresh-faced teen would go on to become a four-time world champion and 400m individual medley world record holder.

Paris was, therefore, primed for the teen to make the step up from prodigy to champion – and she’s lived up to the hype and then some.

Securing two Olympic record times? Check. Completing a golden medley double in the 200m and 400m? Check.

The Toronto-born swimmer ended her Parisian tour de force with four individual medals from a single Games – three golds and a silver – joining swimming great Michelle Smith, Katinka Hosszú and Kristin Otto as the only other women to do so at a single Summer Games.

“I would not change anything that I’ve done in my childhood to now to have these medals,” she explains.

“It’s hard to kind of put into words how exactly it feels. Sometimes, in the moments when you are sacrificing those things, it doesn’t feel worth it. But now, in the end, though, it’s worth it.”