Ledecky breezes to 3rd world swimming gold
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Katie Ledecky breezed to her third gold medal of the swimming world championships, backing off a bit on her most grueling night of the meet.
It was left to Lilly King, Kylie Masse and Adam Peaty to take down the record book — and King to claim another impressive triumph over her Russian rival.
Ledecky captured the 1,500-meter freestyle by more than half the length of the pool Tuesday and returned 49 minutes later to post the fastest time in the semifinals of the 200 free.
Ledecky sucked all the suspense out of her final — she was more than 19 seconds ahead of the runnerup — but 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-yearold record in the semifinals, giving her the prime lane in the middle of the pool. But King, racing right beside her, was the one who came through again when it counted. She got off to a blistering start and led all the way, touching in 1 minute, 4.13 seconds to shave 0.22 off the Lithuanian’s mark from the 2013 worlds in Barcelona.
King pounded the water when she saw the time and then turned to congratulate the runner-up — American teammate Katie Meili, who edged out the Russian for the silver.
Ledecky covered the metric mile in 15:31.82 — more than six seconds off her world-record pace from the world championships in Kazan, Russia, two years ago
Peaty, Britain’s breaststroke lion, broke a pair of 50-meter breaststroke marks — one in the morning preliminaries, another in the evening semifinals. Peaty’s initial time of 26.10 shaved 0.32 seconds 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.
PRO BASKETBALL Blazers trade Crabbe to Nets
Portland traded Allen Crabbe to Brooklyn in exchange for forward Andrew Nicholson.
The deal comes a year after the Nets offered Crabbe a four-year, $75 million deal as a restricted free agent. The Trail Blazers matched that offer.
Crabbe averaged 10.7 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.2 assists last season in Portland. He hit 44.4 percent of his 3-pointers.
Nicholson, who was traded from Washington to the Nets at the deadline in February, averaged 2.6 points and 1.6 rebounds last season. In other news:
• Stephen Curry finalized his new contract, signing a five-year, $201 million deal with the champion Golden State Warriors that initially was the richest until James Harden topped it with a $228 million extension from the Rockets.
• Atlanta re-signed power forward Mike Muscala, an unrestricted free agent, to a two-year, $10 million deal.
• Phoenix backup point guard Brandon Knight tore his left anterior cruciate ligament while playing in a pro-am game last week at Miami and will be lost for the upcoming season.
SOCCER K.C sends Dwyer to Orlando City
Sporting Kansas City forward Dom Dwyer was traded to Orlando City for what could be a Major League Soccer-record $1.6 million.
Orlando sent $900,000 in guaranteed allocation money plus more based on performance in the deal for Dwyer, who recently earned his first call-up for the U.S. national team after becoming a citizen.
Dwyer, 26, was selected by Kansas City in the 2012 MLS SuperDraft. He ranks second on the team with five goals this season. In other news:
• One week after his arrest in a corruption probe, Angel Maria Villar’s three-decade reign of the Spanish Football Federation came to an end when he was suspended from its presidency. Villar, FIFA’s senior vice president, has been behind bars since police detained him, his son Gorka Villar and two other soccer officials during police raids of the national federation headquarters and other properties. Seeing no sign Villar was willing to step down from the post he has held since 1988, Spain’s government decided to remove him in an attempt to limit the damage done to the national sport.
MISCELLANEOUS Clarendon joins rare WNBA club
Layshia Clarendon had 15 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists to become the sixth WNBA player with a triple-double as Atlanta beat visiting Phoenix 99-91 in overtime. It was the first triple-double in the 20-year-old league since Temeka Johnson’s on July 24, 2014. … Home runs accounted for five of Long Island’s runs in a 6-1 Atlantic League victory over Sugar Land at Central Islip, N.Y. Travis Scott drove in the Skeeters’ lone run with a single in the first inning.