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Katie Ledecky held the world record for the three longest women’s freestyle swimming distances for eight years, with those records broken 11 times at that distance – each time by Ledecky herself.
Since Sunday this is no longer the case. Australia’s Ariarne Titmus, who emerged as Ledecky’s closest rival during the previous four-year Olympics and twice defeated the American at the Tokyo Games, equaled Ledecky’s 400-meter record during the Australian Swimming Championships in Adelaide.
Titmus, 21, finished Sunday night’s final in 3 minutes 56.40 seconds, beating Ledecky’s standard of 3:56.46 set at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics by six hundredths of a second.
Titmus flirted with the world record at the 2021 Australian Olympic Trials (3:56.90) and the Tokyo Olympics final (3:56.69) – the latter of which gave Ledecky, the silver medalist, her first loss at an international meeting of a one their core events. Titmus also beat Ledecky for gold in the 200 meters in Tokyo; Ledecky earned a degree of revenge by beating Titmus in the 800 and adding a second gold in the 1,500 that Titmus didn’t swim. They were the sixth and seventh Olympic gold medals of her career.
“It’s kind of nice now that I’m not being asked when I’m going to break the world record,” Titmus told reporters on Sunday. “I’m as happy as I’ve ever been outside of swimming. When I swim, I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. It definitely shows in the pool.”
From July: How Katie Ledecky swims faster than the rest of the world
Ledecky, 25, still holds the world records for the longest freestyle distances: 8:04.79 in the 800-meter dash at Rio 2016 and 15:20.48 in the 1,500-meter dash at the TYR Pro Swim Series meet 2018 in Indianapolis. In the 400, she broke Federica Pellegrini’s five-year-old world record of 3:59.15 in 2014 and then broke it twice more, most recently in Rio 2016.
As in Tokyo, Titmus spoke enthusiastically about Ledecky’s legacy and influence on Sunday, telling reporters: “I can’t stand next to her. What she did for women’s swimming was crazy. She has been at this level for 10 years. To be able to talk to her – I feel completely honored. And I hope now that this keeps the fight going and gives her some impetus.”
A rematch was due to take place at the World Championships in Budapest next month, but Titmus had previously announced she would be skipping worlds and instead taking part in the Commonwealth Games from late July. That means Ledecky and Titmus are unlikely to meet again until the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan – a year before the 2024 Paris Olympics.