By: Peter Xiao
On Saturday, Katie Ledecky won a gold medal in the women’s 400-meter freestyle race at the FINA World Championships at Duna Arena in Budapest, Hungary with a time of 3 minutes 58.15 seconds, setting a personal-best time in the 2021-2022 season by over a second.
The competition was fierce, with the runner-up, 15-year-old Canadian phenom Summer McIntosh, pushing Ledecky throughout the race, and scoring a time of 3 minutes 59.39 seconds, marking her as the fourth female ever to go under four minutes in the 400-meter freestyle race. When there were 100 meters left in the race, McIntosh managed to swim within a second behind Ledecky, but Ledecky kept her off and pulled the win with her finishing kick.
The medal is the 16th gold medal of Ledecky’s career in world championships, meaning she has five more gold medals than any other female swimmer in history. The determination from Summer McIntosh solidifies her place as a top contender in the 400-freestyle at the 2024 Paris Olympics against both Katie Ledecky and Ariarne Titmus.
Ledecky herself acknowledged the fierce competition, commenting on the future in the 2024 Paris Olympics, saying, “I was a little nervous. [McIntosh] hung in there the whole time, so she definitely pushed me a lot…Summer is now in the sub-four-minute club, so it’s only going to get harder these races. So I know I have my work cut out for me. It’s a good steppingstone here, to just kind of have a baseline for the next couple years moving [toward] Paris.”
Ariarne Titmus, Ledecky’s main rival, talks about Ledecky’s skill, saying, “Definitely when we’re in the pool racing, she’s my biggest rival. It doesn’t really matter who she is: I want to beat her. But then as a person, I seriously respect her. I know what it’s taken to get to this level, and she’s been at this level since I was 12 years old. I respect the work that she’s put into swimming. She’s changed female swimming.”
Ariarne Titmus has proven herself as a very tough rival for Ledecky, with Titmus beating Ledecky at last summer’s Tokyo Olympics in the 200 and 400-meter freestyle events and in the previous world championship in the 400-meter freestyle event. It’s said that if Titmus participated in this world championship, she may have defeated Ledecky just like in the Tokyo Olympics.
The question now is who will take the win in the 400 women’s freestyle in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Now with everything considered, the competition is fierce, and either Katie Ledecky, Summer McIntosh, or Ariarne Titmus will take home the win.
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/06/18/katie-ledecky-400-free/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/sports/olympics/ariarne-titmus-katie-ledecky-swimming-worlds.html