By: Evan Pan-Wang

American swimmer Katie Ledecky won the women’s 400-meter freestyle at the 2022 world championships in Budapest in 3 minutes and 58.15 seconds. The world record holder, and Katie’s biggest rival, Ariarne Titmus, was absent from the race. However, Katie didn’t become the most remarkable women’s distance swimmer of all time by focusing on her competition. What she focused on in her opening event of the championships were

• To see improvement in the race, where she dropped a whole second in the event for the 2021-22 season.

• Another fast time, which she got the 4th fastest time of her well-decorated career. Getting the 16th world championship gold medal to further cement herself as the most dominant women’s distance swimmer ever.

• Katie also told reporters that she is excited about the rest of the meet, where she will swim three more events.

In the lane next to her was 15-year-old Canadian swimmer Summer McIntosh, whose presence was a threat to Katie getting her gold. The 15-year-old went on to be the 4th female ever to break 4 minutes with a time of 3:59.39. Her time was within a second of Ledecky’s. The Paris 2024 Olympics could be a great race between Ariarne, Ledecky, and McIntosh. American veteran Leah Smith took bronze in 4:02. Team USA also took gold in the 4×100 freestyle relay, where Ryan Held split an incredible 46.99. The world record for the women’s 400 free was set last month by Ariarne Titmus and Ledecky was asked if it gave her any more motivation to break it. She replied, “A lot of people are like, ‘Oh it must motivate you more.’ But I’m always motivated …. If I didn’t have that motivation before, that would be a problem.”