By: Tristan Sun
Ten-time Olympic medalist Katie Ledecky added another gold medal to her collection on Saturday while Australian world record holder Ariarne Titmus slept –literally– on the other side of the world.
Ledecky finished the race with a time of 3 minutes 58.15 seconds, a time which may have disappointed some who expected her to retake her world record after Titmus broke it in May at the Australian swimming championships. However, she beat her personal best time of 2021-2022 by over a second and her time constitutes the 4th-fastest of her decorated career.
Summer McIntosh was the youngest athlete on the Canadian team at last year’s Olympic Games, and she performed as advertised on Saturday. The 15-year-old challenger from Canada took silver with a time less than two seconds behind Ledecky. She became the fourth female swimmer to achieve a sub-4-minute time in the 400 free—alongside only Titmus, Ledecky, and Federica Pellegrini of Italy.
While Ledecky was once the unchallenged opponent in the 400 free, times have changed in recent years after Titmus won gold in the event both at the 2019 world championships and the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Titmus was not present at the championship on Saturday, saying she “really wanted to focus on the long term”. We will never know whether she would have bested Ledecky as she did in Tokyo last summer.
McIntosh could also be serious competition for Ledecky in time for the 2024 Olympic games in Paris. McIntosh pulled within a second of Ledecky with 100 meters left to go, but Ledecky was able to fend her off using a rapid finishing kick. After the race, Ledecky conceded “I was a little nervous. [McIntosh] hung in there the whole time, so she definitely pushed me a lot.”
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