Ledecky eases to another routine win

Katie Ledecky breezed to her third gold medal of the world championships in Budapest yesterday, backing off a bit on her most gruelling night of the event.

It was left to Lilly King, Kylie Masse and Adam Peaty to take down the swimming record book – and King to claim another impressive triumph over her Russian rival.

Ledecky captured the 1500m freestyle by more than half the length of the pool and returned 49 minutes later to post the fastest time in the semifinals of the 200 free.

Long or short, it doesn’t seem to matter to the American star.

‘‘It’s hard the other 364 days of the year,’’ Ledecky said, barely breathing hard. ‘‘It’s putting the work in for practice, so when I get to this day of the meet, I can just do it. It’s routine. Just get up and know that I have the work in the bank to get up and swim those times.’’

While Ledecky sucked all the suspense out of her final – she was more than 19 seconds ahead of the runnerup – King made it 2-0 over Yulia Efimova with a world-record performance in what has become one of swimming’s most compelling rivalries.

The finger-wagging American won gold at the Rio Olympics last summer after spurning Efimova and brazenly proclaiming the Russian star had no business being allowed to compete because of doping violations.

Efimova nearly broke Ruta Meilutyte’s 4-year-old record in the semifinals, giving her the prime lane in the middle of the pool.

But King was the one who came through again when it really counted. She got off to a blistering start and led all the way, touching in 1min 4.13sec to shave 0.22sec off the Lithuanian’s mark.

‘‘The rivalry is definitely there. I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon,’’ King said. ‘‘Obviously, it’s very awkward between the two of us. We’re competitors. We don’t really like each other too much.’’

Peaty, Britain’s breaststroke lion with the tattoo to match, broke a pair of 50m breaststroke marks – one in the morning preliminaries, another in the evening semifinals. Peaty’s initial time of 26.10sec shaved 0.32sec off the standard he set at the 2015 worlds in Kazan. He went even faster a few hours later in the non-Olympic event, touching in 25.95.

Masse took down another record from the rubber-suit era. She won the women’s 100m backstroke in 51.10sec – 0.02sec better than the mark set by Britain’s Gemma Spofforth’s at the 2009 world championships in Rome.