Within the opening act for what guarantees to be an exciting showdown on the primary day of swimming on the Paris Olympics, 2016 gold medalist and former world-record holder Katie Ledecky set the highest mark of the ladies’s 400m freestyle preliminary heats Saturday morning in Paris.
FULL RESULTS
Ledecky completed in 4:02.19 after chasing down and overtaking Australia’s Ariarne Titmus – the Tokyo gold medalist and present world report holder – within the final 100m of the third and ultimate warmth.
Warmth 2 featured the third former world-record holder, Canada’s Summer season McIntosh. Nevertheless, McIntosh completed one tenth behind New Zealand’s Erika Fairweather, the 2024 world champion (within the absence of Ledecky, Titmus and McIntosh).
The 4 swimmers have been separated by simply 0.46, setting the stage for what many have anticipated as a “race of the century” caliber ultimate scheduled for two:52 p.m. ET.
The tempo will likely be upped considerably in that ultimate, with all 4 swimmers boasting private bests properly south of 4 minutes.
Titmus’ world report at the moment stands at 3:55.38, set on the 2023 world championships, the final main meet to function the Aussie, Ledecky and McIntosh. It would seemingly take a brand new all-time mark to win gold in Saturday’s ultimate.
Protection of Saturday’s finals session begins at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC, Peacock, NBCOlympics.com and extra.