Katie Ledecky appears towards ‘exciting’ face to face with Summer McIntosh at World Aquatics Championships

With the swimming portion of the World Aquatics Championships approaching, all eyes might be on Katie Ledecky, probably the most embellished feminine swimmer in historical past, as she goes face to face with teen sensation Summer McIntosh.

Ledecky, who has 9 Olympic gold medals and a staggering 21 World Championship titles, has dominated ladies’s swimming for greater than a decade and appears towards this 12 months’s championships in Singapore with an keen eye.

“Each of my events, there’s a different challenge and I’m just excited to see what kind of times I can put up and how I can race,” she advised CNN Sports.

For years, the one individual the American has needed to fear about threatening her data is herself. But regardless of nonetheless amassing wins and accolades, Ledecky – whose early profession was characterised by outrageously quick occasions – hadn’t bagged a world document in seven years.

That was till this May, when she shaved six-tenths of a second off a world document she set virtually a decade in the past within the ladies’s 800m freestyle – signalling a return to her trademark velocity and energy, and a starvation to maintain pushing swimming’s limits.

“It was more than just the world record to me. It was going the best time… I think every swimmer knows that feeling, you know, that feeling of going at best time and being better than you’ve ever been. And for me, that just happened to be the world record in that event, and so that was an added bonus,” she defined.

However, at this 12 months’s world championships, Canadian teenager Summer McIntosh might be offering the often dominant Ledecky some fierce competitors.

The 18-year-old McIntosh set three world data on the Canadian Swimming trials in June, smashing the 400m freestyle world document in some model with a time of three:54.18, in addition to breaking the 200m particular person medley (IM) world document and her personal 400m IM mark from May final 12 months.

With 4 Olympic medals already to her identify – three of them gold – McIntosh is on a path to swimming immortality, and at this 12 months’s Championships, she is aiming to win five individual gold medals, a feat solely beforehand achieved by the legendary Michael Phelps.

McIntosh can also be edging nearer to Ledecky’s area: final month, she set a brand new Canadian document within the 800m freestyle with 8:05.07 – which was simply 0.95 seconds wanting Ledecky’s time.

The two will go face to face within the 800m freestyle in Singapore, the primary time McIntosh has competed within the occasion on the world championships in a direct problem to Ledecky’s – who’s a six-time world champion on this occasion – dominance.

“I’ve gotten to race Summer a lot over the years now. I think for the first time I raced her in Tokyo and she was just 14 years old, and I think at that point, you could see that she had a bright future ahead of her,” Ledecky advised CNN Sports.

She added: “We will race the 400 and the 800 against each other. And there’ll be some other great competition in those races as well. So I think it’s exciting.”

Speaking of her unbelievable 800m free efficiency earlier this 12 months, she stated: “It was my greatest time. It was the world document that Summer’s been, you already know, persevering with to drop time in each occasion.

“It should be some exciting races and I’m just gonna put my best foot forward and see what I can do.”

McIntosh can also be as much as the problem, explaining in a video convention on July 9: “One of the various causes I picked 800 is as a result of, for my part, it’s the largest problem. Katie is so robust and in her high kind this season, in order that match-up might be superior.

“I think we bring the best out of each other.”

Ledecky has been making ready for her seventh World Championships rigorously, coaching for round 25 to 30 hours every week – swimming 10 occasions every week and figuring out 5 occasions every week.

Her downtime is simply as necessary as her coaching, she defined: “It’s hours that people don’t think about that are just as important. How I’m fueling my body, how I am resting, how I’m recovering.”

She added that together with bodily preparation, she locations nice emphasis on psychological readiness.

“I think every day that I’m in the water at practice, I’m visualizing racing situations that I am in, or I’m just thinking about my goals, my times, my paces, my technique, all the different things that I need to be thinking about and being diligent about,” Ledecky defined.

“I’ve had really great coaches … that have believed in me and believed that some of my best swimming is ahead of me and that’s what we’re working toward every day.”

Although Ledecky is undeniably pleased with her record-breaking achievements, she is most completely satisfied along with her profession as a complete.

“I think, you know, what I’m probably happiest with is just the consistency that I’ve had over the years,” she advised CNN Sports.

“I by no means imagined I might make it even to 1 Olympics and so something after that first gold medal at my first Olympics once I was 15 has been form of icing on the cake. Everything’s simply been additional from then on out.

“It’s kind of freeing there’s no pressure. Certainly, I put pressure on myself, but I always remind myself of that and that takes the pressure off.”

The swimming competitions on the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore run from July 27 to August 3.