American Katie Ledecky lowers own world mark in 1500 free

She set the world record of 3:58.37 at last years Pan Pacific championships in Australia. Bravo for dreaming big.

Then along came Ledecky.

Swimming seventh at the 150m mark of her semi-final, Ledecky mustered every drop of energy to touch third and qualified sixth overall heading into Wednesday’s final.

“It was a little nerve-racking being behind quite a few of those girls”. Its lowest medal total at an Olympics or Worlds in the last 50 years was 21 at the 1994 World Championships.

Katie Ledecky is the world’s most dominant athlete and one you may have never heard of.

Ledecky has a busy day Tuesday. There are distance swimmers, and there are sprinters. “I want to break the 400m free world record at the Rio Games”, said the confident Sunday.

Katie Ledecky competes on the way to winning the gold medal in the women’s 1,500-meter freestyle final at the 16th FINA World Championships at the Kazan Arena on August. 4, 2015 in Kazan, Russia. She pretty much eats, sleeps and swims. She continually pushed herself throughout the 30 laps, obviously not content to simply secure victory. It also shattered the former championships record of 15:36.53, which she set en route to gold in 2013, by nearly nine seconds.

It was what she pulled off 32 minutes later in the semifinals of the 200 free.

Ledecky is the clear favorite heading into that race, with Boyle making a good case for silver.

It was the fourth time that Ledecky has broken her own 1500m freestyle record.

She was introduced to the crowd at 6:52 p.m., waving feebly and tossing off the parka.

“I’ve done it that way too many times”, Lochte said of quick turnarounds. “I only have 2,000 meters left of racing this week”. “Hopefully I can pull that through the rest of the week”.

There will be a battle royal in the men’s 100m breaststroke final on Monday as world-record holder Adam Peaty goes head-to-head with Olympic champion Cameron van der Burgh.

The United States, winners of the relay at 11 of the 15 previous world meets, surprisingly failed to make the final after winning its preliminary heat, but tying with Germany for 11th.

“I knew going in that I would have to have the flawless race, and I did not have the ideal race”, Grevers said.

There was still a medal ceremony for the 1,500 to follow. But her voice dropped out from time to time, her mouth going still. 18 behind French silver medalist Camille Lacourt.

“I knew I had some catching up to do but I kept fighting right to the end and it paid off”.

Swimvortex.com had a nice roundup of the extent of Ledecky’s dominance in her the three events.

“I was thinking maybe I shouldn’t do this”, she reflected. Some of it can be answered.

Ledecky beat her own world record set in the heats a day earlier, clocking 15min 25.48s, while Boyle clobbered her national record in touching in 15:40.14 taking almost five seconds off her old mark from two years ago.

Not even one in which she was capable of beating the field by roughly the length of the pool.

Missy Franklin of the United States opened her individual campaign as the world and Olympic 100 metres backstroke champion was fifth fastest into Monday’s semi-finals.

“I’m very surprised I lost the back half of that”.