Sun makes golden start in quest for freestyle treble
BARCELONA: China’s Sun Yang matched a feat previously achieved only by Australian Grant Hackett and American teenager Katie Ledecky became the secondfastest woman ever with victories in the men’s and women’s 400m freestyle at the world swimming championships on Sunday.
Sun, 22, the Olympic champion in London last year, equalled Hackett in claiming world titles at 400m, 800m and 1500m while 16-year-old Ledecky became only the second woman after Italian world record holder Federica Pellegrini to break four minutes.
The opening day of competition in the specially constructed pool at Barcelona’s hilltop Palau Sant Jordi was a triumph for the United States, who also took gold in the women’s 4x100m relay and silver in the men’s race behind France.
While Sun’s three titles in the longer freestyle events have come at two dif- ferent championships — he won the 800m and 1500m in Shanghai two years ago and was second in the 400m — he remains on course to repeat Hackett’s three golds from the 2005 edition in Montreal.
He led the 400m from the start on Sunday, pulling inexorably away and touching in a time of three minutes, 41.59 sec.
Japanese teenager Kosuke Hagino took silver, more than three seconds behind Sun in 3:44.82, and American Connor Jaeger, 22, won the bronze in 3:44:85.
‘‘In the last year I experienced many things and I still managed to win my gold medal,’’ Sun told reporters.
Ledecky, a gold medallist over 800m in London in the first major event of her career, leaped out of the water and punched the air after she secured the first US 400m freestyle gold since Janet Evans in 1991 and smashed the American record by nearly two seconds.
She was initially on course to break Pellegrini’s world best of 3:59.15 but slipped off the pace in the final 100m to finish in a time of 3:59.82.
‘‘I just got into it, and I’m still in shock,‘‘ Ledecky said. ‘‘I didn’t know really how fast I was going but it just shows what happens when you get in a race with the best in the world.’’
Spain’s Melanie Costa Schmid gave the home supporters something to cheer by taking silver in 4:02.47 and Lauren Boyle of New Zealand was third in 4:03.89, the first woman to win a medal for her nation at a world championships.
The popular 4x100m freestyle relay events, bringing the evening’s racing to a close, got the crowd on their feet.
The French men were given vocal support from a sizeable contingent of their flag-waving compatriots, who watched their heroes storm from behind to see off the United States, Russia and Australia.