Katie Ledecky kept on stacking up against her gold medal collection on Monday in the wake of procuring a record-expanding seventeenth world championship title with triumph in the 1500m freestyle.
Ledecky, who won the women’s 400m freestyle on the opening day of the championships, traveled to the gold medal with a period of 15 minutes and 30.15 seconds. The 25-year-old American completed over 14 seconds in front of countryman Katie Grimes, who took the silver. Australia’s Lani Pallister won bronze.
The success gave Ledecky her twentieth world championship medal, equalling the women’s record set by comrade Natalie Coughlin.
“It’s pretty wild because I feel like just yesterday I was in Barcelona at my first worlds. It’s awesome representing Team USA year after year, and it’s an honour and a privilege, and it’s why I work hard,” she said.
Somewhere else on Monday, Romanian teen David Popovici affirmed his status as one of the most exciting arising ability in the game in the wake of creating a rankling swim to take gold in the men’s 200 meters freestyle.
Popovici, 17, has been drawing examinations with a portion of swimming’s greats with his predominant exhibitions in junior titles and outpowered a solid field in the 200m free for a triumph which declared his appearance in the first class.
The Bucharest competitor, who completed fourth in Tokyo, turned into the principal male Romanian swimmer to bring home gold at the big showdowns as he wrapped up with a period of 1:43.21 – another lesser world record. He completed over a second in front of South Korea’s Hwang Sun-charm while Britain’s ruling Olympic top dog Tom Dean completed third.
“People at home believed in me. This medal is for them,” said Popovici. “Now, I will go to recover and get ready for the 100m competition,” he said looking ahead to the clash with Olympic champion Caeleb Dressel.
Italy partook in a vital session at the Duna Arena with Thomas Ceccon breaking the men’s 100m backstroke world record and 17-year-old Benedetta Pilato securing the ladies’ 100m breaststroke.
Italy’s euphoria started when Ceccon, 21, completed the 100m backstroke with a marvelous season of 51.60 seconds – 0.25 seconds better compared to American Ryan Murphy’s past imprint. Murphy, a four-times Olympic gold medallist, completed second while individual American Hunter Armstrong was third.
“I have no words, there was an Olympic champion in 2016 [Murphy] and other strong people. I’m pretty happy,” said Ceccon.
The women’s 100m breaststroke race was without Olympic champion Lydia Jacoby and Tokyo silver medallist Tatjana Schoenmaker and Pilato made use advantage.
“I’m super happy, it was my dream and it came true tonight,” an emotional Pilato said as she broke down in tears, unable to finish her post-race interview.