Katie Ledecky is having quite the week in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
A day after posting the second-fastest women’s 1500-meter time in history, the nine-time Olympic gold medalist posted her best swim in nine years in the 400-meter freestyle, a 3:56.81 at the Tyr Pro Series meet. It was her first major appearance since the Paris Olympics last year.
Significantly, she did it with a comeback win on the last lap in the final, overtaking Summer McIntosh, the Canadian who broke out in Paris.
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Ledecky’s time is a new American record, the seventh-best time in history and her second-best ever, behind only a 3:56.46, the one-time world record that won her the gold medal in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Thursday’s impressive win was an accomplishment she didn’t see coming, via NBC Sports:
“I don’t know if I ever thought I was going to be 3:56 again,” Ledecky said on Peacock.
The race was a partial rematch in one of the more disappointing events in Ledecky’s Paris program. Ledecky took bronze and McIntosh took silver in the 400-meter behind gold medal winner Ariarne Titmus, who led from wire to wire. Ledecky’s time on Thursday would have won the gold medal in Paris (Titmus swam a 3:57.49), though that was in a different pool with different conditions.
Titmus, the world-record holder in the event, has said she will sit out most major events this year, setting up a clash between Ledecky and McIntosh at the world championships in Singapore later this year.
With wins in the 1500-meter and 400-meter freestyle already in hand, Ledecky is set to compete in both the 200-meter freestyle and 400-meter individual medley Friday. Neither event is a specialty for her, though she still has the 800-meter freestyle remaining on the program.
