Summer McIntosh wins 400m freestyle to open swimming worlds drive for 5

Canadian Summer McIntosh gained the 400m freestyle — the primary of her two head-to-heads with Katie Ledecky — to open her bid to win a record-tying 5 particular person gold medals on the World Swimming Championships.

McIntosh, an 18-year-old who bagged three golds on the 2024 Olympics, clocked 3 minutes, 56.26 seconds, beating China’s Li Bingjie by a cushty 1.95 seconds.

Ledecky took bronze in Singapore for her twenty seventh profession World Championships medal, tying Ryan Lochte for second in historical past behind Michael Phelps’ 33.

McIntosh broke the 400m free world report in 2023 and once more final month, when she took it down to three:54.18.

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The 400m free was the lone occasion that McIntosh didn’t win on the Paris Games, taking silver behind Australian Ariarne Titmus (who’s taking a break in 2025) and forward of Ledecky.

McIntosh has 4 particular person occasions left at these worlds: 200m and 400m particular person medleys, 200m butterfly and the 800m free with Ledecky (which the American has by no means misplaced at a significant meet).

“The way my freestyle is feeling, it’s feeling really strong, and I feel like my endurance is really good right now, so really hyped for the 800m freestyle,” McIntosh mentioned on Peacock.

She can turn out to be the second swimmer to win 5 particular person golds at a single worlds after Phelps.

Ledecky has gained a 400m free medal each time she has raced it on the Olympics or worlds — 10 occasions courting to 2013.

She was in place for silver going into the final 50 meters, then was handed by Li, who went from fourth to second in an Asian report time.

“I would have loved to have been better,” Ledecky mentioned. “I was a little too focused on the race on the one side. I missed Li on the other side of me, but kudos to her for getting in there. She’s been a great competitor all these years. Happy to get the medal.”

Katie Ledecky eyes the longest reign in World Championships historical past. Summer McIntosh needs to finish it.

Also Sunday, Australia swept the ladies’s and males’s 4x100m free relays by overtaking the main Americans within the final 50 meters.

In the ladies’s last, Australian Olivia Wunsch went previous American Torri Huske to prevail by 44 hundredths. Huske raced out within the first 50, erasing the Aussies’ lead of 61 hundredths after the primary three legs.

Huske, the Olympic 100m fly gold medalist, was among the many U.S. swimmers who grew to become sick at a pre-worlds coaching camp in Thailand. A majority of U.S. swimmers had been affected to various levels by acute gastroenteritis, or a abdomen bug.

In Sunday’s morning preliminary heats session, Huske scratched out of the 100m fly to prioritize the relay, in response to USA Swimming. She can nonetheless race the 50m and 100m frees later within the meet, plus extra relays.

Gretchen Walsh, 100m free runner-up to Huske on the U.S. Championships, was a late scratch from the relay last after tying for the win in her 100m fly semifinal.

In the lads’s relay, nine-time Olympic medalist Kyle Chalmers overtook American rookie Jonny Kulow on anchor with the quickest break up of the 32-swimmer discipline. Italy additionally handed the U.S. for silver.

German Lukas Martens took the lads’s 400m free by two hundredths over Australian Sam Short in 3:42.35.

Martens, the Paris Olympic gold medalist, broke the world report within the occasion in April, clocking 3:39.96. He took down the longest-standing particular person world report set by fellow German Paul Biedermann in 2009.

Worlds proceed all week with preliminary heats at 10 p.m. ET and finals at 7 a.m., reside on Peacock.

Monday’s finals are anticipated to function world report holders McIntosh within the 200m IM and Walsh within the ladies’s 100m fly.

The World Swimming Championships air reside on Peacock from July 26-Aug. 3.