Ledecky shatters 800 free record for 5th gold medal
KAZAN, Russia — There is no stopping Katie Ledecky. The 18-year-old American virtually raced herself at the world swimming championships, and she was unbeatable.
Ledecky ended her meet in spectacular style Saturday night, lowering her world record by 3.61 seconds in the 800-meter freestyle for her fifth gold medal.
She swam the 16-lap race in 8 minutes, 7.39 seconds, bettering her time of 8:11.00 set last year on home soil.
“I knew that I was capable of going sub-8:10,” she said. “So to go 8:07 means a lot.”
Ledecky completed a sweep of the 200, 400, 800 and 1,500 freestyles in Kazan. She swam the anchor leg on the victorious 800 free relay, too.
“It’s really neat to say that you’ve done something nobody has done before,” Ledecky said. “I’ll enjoy this for a few days, and then I’ll get back to work and hopefully there’s more to come.”
She improved her results from two years ago at Barcelona, where she won four golds and set two world records. In Kazan, she won the 400 by 3.89 seconds, the 800 by 10.26 seconds and the 1,500 by 14.66 seconds, taking down her old world record in the preliminaries and the final.
Her closest race was the 200 free, when she rallied from fourth to win by 0.16 seconds.
On the men’s side, Sun Yang of China is poised for a nearly similar feat. He won the 400 and 800 freestyles and is favored to add the 1,500 on the last day Sunday. Sun finished second in the 200 free by 0.06 seconds.
Chad le Clos defended his title in the 100 butterfly, rallying late to edge Laszlo Cseh of Hungary in the absence of Olympic champion Michael Phelps, who beat Le Clos at London three years ago.
The South African was second at the turn and then poured it on down the stretch, touching in 50.56 seconds. Cseh was second in 50.87.
Florent Manaudou of France wonthe 50 free to go with his Olympic title. His time of 21.19 is fastest in the world this year.
Nathan Adrian of the United States finished second in 21.52.
Defending champion Missy Franklin faltered in the 200 backstroke. She was overtaken down the stretch by Emily Seebohm of Australia, who touched in 2:05.81 to complete a sweep of the backstroke events.
The men’s 100 and 200 back titles went Down Under, too, with Seebohm’s teammate, Mitchell Larkin, claiming both in a double that inspired Seebohm.
Franklin, the Olympic champion, settled for silver in 2:06.34. In seven events so far, Franklin has five medals, but no individual gold two years after she won a record six golds in Barcelona.
“This is probably one of the hardest races to get second, just because I love it so much,” Franklin said. “But I’m honestly really happy with that. I fought my heart out. I went out after it and I swam it like Missy Franklin swims a two backstroke. I’m just not there at the end yet, and that’s all right.”
Franklin returned later to anchor the U.S. team to victory in the mixed 400 free relay. Ryan Lochte, Adrian, Simone Manuel and Franklin won in 3:23.05, a world record.