Katie Ledecky is not of this world.
The American swimming superstar has entered her name into the record books once more on Sunday.
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Ledecky broke the 800m freestyle short course world record at the FINA World Cup meeting in Indianapolis.
She didn’t just beat the mark, she obliterated it by almost two seconds. Touching the wall in 7min 57.42 at the World Cup event in Indiana, breaking the previous record of 7:59.34 set in 2013 by Spain’s Mireia Belmonte.
Ledecky had opened her season at the World Cup stop in Toronto last weekend, where she shattered the 1,500m freestyle short course record with a time of 15:08.24sec.
That sliced almost 10 seconds off the previous mark of 15:18.01 set by Germany’s Sarah Wellbrock in 2019 in Berlin.
Ledecky, owner of seven Olympic gold medals and 19 world titles, set the long course world record in the 1,500m free of 15:20.48 in 2018 at Indianapolis.
She set the 800m free long course world record of 8:04.79 at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and already owned the 28 fastest long course 800m free times ever recorded.
Ledecky blew the competition away as she obliterated the previous world record mark, finishing just shy of 10 seconds ahead of the second placed swimmer.
Canadian Summer McIntosh was the second swimmer to touch the wall, doing so in a time of 8:07.12.
The swimming records have tumbled in recent weeks with Ariarne Titmus’ 400m freestyle short course world record shattered by China’s Li Bingjie.
Bingjie crushed a new world record of 3:51.30 at the Chinese swimming championships in Beijing, destroying Titmus’ old record by a massive 2.6 seconds.
Li is the reigning world short course champion in the 400m freestyle and won bronze in the event at last year’s Tokyo Olympics.
A day after Li’s swim, Ledecky took on McIntosh in an epic battle in the 400m freestyle event in Toronto.
There was nothing in it as McIntosh out-touched Ledecky by 0.08 seconds — setting a new world junior record in the process.
The times swam by McIntosh (3:52.80) and Ledecky (3:52.88) were both faster than Titmus’ previous world record set four years ago.
Titmus still holds the world record in the long course 400m freestyle, set at this year’s Australian trials.
She narrowly beat McIntosh at the Commonwealth Games but is facing more challenges in her pet event than ever.
– with AFP
