Ledecky breezes to 3rd worlds gold

Katie Ledecky breezed to her third gold medal of the 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 swimming record book.

Ledecky captured the 1,500-meter freestyle by more than half the length of the pool, and returned just 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 drama out of her event — she was more than 19 seconds ahead of the runner-up — King’s performance marked another notch for the fingerwagging American in her rivalry with Russian star Yulia Efimova.

King won gold at the Rio Olympics last summer after spurning Efimova and brazenly proclaiming she had no business being allowed to compete because of doping violations.

Matt Grevers of Tucson won a silver medal in the 100meter backstroke. China’s Xu Jiayu was first at Worlds in 52.44 seconds followed Grevers in 52.48 and Rio gold medalist Ryan Murphy in 52.59