ADELAIDE, Australia —
Ariarne Titmus smashed American great Katie Ledecky’s 400m freestyle
world record at the Australian championships Sunday, touching in 3mins
56.40secs to reinforce her dominant status after a breakout
Tokyo Olympics.
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The 21-year-old
upset Ledecky in the Olympic pool last year to claim gold and has now bettered
her arch rival’s 3:56.46 world best set at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
“Oh my God, I’ve
just loved swimming the past six months, just going to training with no
pressure and just enjoying the sport,” Titmus said poolside in Adelaide.
“Coming here
with no pressure, apart from the pressure I put on myself, which is still
pretty high, it’s just fun.”
“I never thought
this meet, post-Olympics, I’d be swimming faster than Olympic trials and the
Olympic Games. I guess if you keep surprising yourself it keeps the sport
interesting,” she added.
Titmus was under
world record pace for the entire race, turning at the halfway mark in 1:56.99
before bringing it home to huge cheers from the crowd.
Ledecky won the
400 free at the US trials last month in 3:59.52.
But Titmus is
not expected to defend her world title against her rival in Budapest in June,
opting to skip the event and focus on the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in
July.
It capped an
impressive meet for the Australian who won the 200m freestyle in 1:53.31, the
third fastest time ever. She beat Ledecky to win Olympic gold in that event
too.
Titmus also
clocked a personal best in the 100m in Adelaide, but opted out of the 800m.
It was the
second world record of the meet after Olympic 200m breaststroke champion Zac
Stubblety-Cook smashed that mark on Thursday, hitting the wall in 2:05.95.
Tough
Double Olympic backstroke champion
Kaylee McKeown swept to victory in
the 200m medley in 2:09.15. It was her fourth win of the event after coming
home first in the 400m medley and 100m and 200m backstroke.
“It was tough
race and tough training and hopefully come back in a few weeks a bit stronger,”
she said.
Shayna Jack also
shone with the world’s fastest 50m freestyle time this year, taking the mantle
from star veterans Cate Campbell and Emma McKeon who skipped the Australian
event and will not be at the world championships.
She touched in
24.14, a personal best, having also swum the year’s fastest in the morning
heat.
“Amazing
feeling. I just wanted to go out there and best my morning swim and I did that
so really happy,” she said. “It’s been a great week. I couldn’t have asked for
a better week.”
Jack, part of Australia’s
4x100m freestyle team that set a world record in 2018, is in her first major
meet since returning from a doping ban after testing positive for muscle growth
agent ligandrol in 2019.
She always
claimed innocence and won an appeal to have the ban reduced to two years from
four.
She will also
swim the 100m freestyle at the worlds after qualifying second in another
personal best, behind Mollie O’Callaghan.
Isaac Cooper
(54.02) won the men’s 100m backstroke to make the Budapest team while teenagers
Lizzy Dekkers and Abbey Connor qualified in the women’s 200m butterfly.
But Stubblety-Cook
missed out in the 50m breaststroke, coming sixth behind winner Samuel
Williamson (27.05).
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