For the first time at this year’s FINA World Championships, the US’ Katie Ledecky, the world’s most dominant swimmer, experienced a fleeting moment of vulnerability after three days of hard racing.
It came on Tuesday at the Kazan Arena, as the 18-year-old attempted a double that no other rival has in their schedule — the 1,500m freestyle final followed a little less than 30 minutes later by the 200m freestyle.
In carving her way to a world record and the women’s 1,500m title, Ledecky, who won the 800m freestyle title at London 2012 as a 15-year-old, secured her second gold of the championships.
Photo: AP
After beating second-placed Lauren Boyle of New Zealand by 14.66 seconds, Ledecky said her legs “felt like jelly.”
She warmed down in the adjacent training pool, turning over 700m in the process, and was soon back in the water to race the 200m freestyle semi-finals.
She had qualified fastest from the heats, but this was going to be an altogether different challenge.
“I was thinking, ‘maybe I shouldn’t do this,’ but it was something that I knew I was capable of doing and I wasn’t afraid to fail,” she said.
Swimming seventh at the 150m mark of her semi-final, Ledecky mustered every drop of energy to touch third and qualified sixth overall heading into yesterday’s final.
“It was nerve-racking being behind a few of the girls and getting my hand to the wall,” she said. On touching, Ledecky let out a sigh of relief before being embraced by compatriot Missy Franklin, the race winner.
Ledecky’s bid for four individual titles had been kept alive and having the morning off yesterday, she said, was a welcome bonus.
Lotte Friis, the 2011 1,500m world champion, told reporters: “Katie is a monster and she has just proved that we don’t stand back.”
“Women are stronger than we look and we can compete just as well as men can. That is an inspiration to not only me, but to all swimmers round the world,” she added.
Ledecky’s exploits came after South Africa’s Cameron van der Burgh broke the men’s 50m breaststroke record in the morning’s heats, only to see Britain’s Adam Peaty swim a new record of 26.42 seconds in the evening’s semi-final.
Yesterday promised to be another breaststroke battle royal between the pair in the 50m final, as Van der Burgh swam 26.74 seconds in his semi-final.
“It’s going to be a good final between me and Cam, as always. We’ll put on a good show, I think,” said Peaty, who beat the South African on the wall in Monday’s 100m final.
The biggest surprise of the night was James Guy’s stunning win in the 200m freestyle final, as the Briton beat China’s Sun Yang at the wall as the 19-year-old left some big names in his wake.
He was just 0.06 seconds ahead of Chinese long-distance expert Sun, who had to settle for silver, while German world-record holder Paul Biedermann took bronze at 0.24 seconds.
Ryan Lochte of the US, who had led early on, was fourth at 0.69 seconds back.
“I never thought I’d race Ryan Lochte head-to-head like that, he is one of my heroes,” said Guy, who is making his world championship debut in Kazan. “Being world champion hasn’t sunk in quite yet, I am so happy.”
The teenager adds gold to the silver he won on Sunday in the men’s 400m freestyle final, when Sun retained his world title from Barcelona two years ago.
Sun can claim his second gold in Kazan when he looks to retain his 800m freestyle title in yesterday’s final.
Australia struck double gold as Mitchell Larkin and Emily Seebohm won the men’s and women’s 100m backstroke finals within minutes of each other.
Larkin, 22, claimed his first world title while Seebohm bounced back from dislocating her knee in a riding accident in May to win her first individual world title.
Larkin touched the wall at 52.40 seconds, with France’s Camille Lacourt taking silver at 0.08 seconds back and Olympic champion Matt Grevers earned bronze at 0.26 seconds.
Seebohm, who also won a relay gold on Sunday, timed 58.26 seconds, with teammate Madison Wilson taking silver at 0.49 seconds. The 23-year-old was in tears during the medal ceremony when the Australian anthem was played.
Yuliya Efimova then won hosts Russia’s first swimming gold, just five months after completing a 16-month ban for taking steroids.
Efimova clocked 1 minute, 5.66 seconds, leaving Olympic champion Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania, who had led at the halfway stage, to settle for silver at 0.70 seconds back and Jamaica’s Alia Atkinson earning bronze at 0.76.
Meilutyte, 18, did not attend the post-final news conference, as she went to be tested for drugs, and none of the six questions posed by reporters to Efimova in Russian were about her ban.
Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh is on course to win his first worlds gold medal in a decade as the fastest qualifier into the men’s 200m butterfly final in 1 minute, 53.53 seconds.
However, world and Olympic champion Chad le Clos of South Africa is right behind him at 0.97 seconds back, in what promises to be a fascinating duel.
World records have now fallen on seven occasions in Kazan.
Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom broke the women’s 100m butterfly record twice en route to winning gold in Monday’s final in 55.64 seconds.
Hungary’s Katinka “Iron Lady” Hosszu set a new record of 2 minutes, 6.12 seconds when she won gold in the 200m individual medley final, also on Monday, before the exploits of Van der Burgh, Peaty and Ledecky.
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