Katie Ledecky tops the list so far for the FINA World Cup standings. Source: Katie Ledecky, Facebook.
American swimmer Katie Ledecky has beaten the 1500m world record by almost 10 seconds at the FINA Swimming World Cup in Toronto.
The 25-year-old entered the pool on Saturday night where she completed the 1500m freestyle short course event at a time of 15:08:24 to beat the previous world record held by Germany’s Sarah Wellbrock at 15:18:01.
“I didn’t have it as a set goal [to break the World Record],” Ledecky told FINA.
“I really didn’t know what to expect coming out of this meet, being my first meet of the season, taking most of August off, getting back into training rhythm, didn’t have any type of super preparation for this meet, just wanted to come in and race international swimmers being a meet in North American soil.”
WORLD RECORD
15:08.24
Katie Ledecky
Smashing the 1500m previous time by nearly 10 seconds. Staggering. This place is going crazy. What a scene. pic.twitter.com/8gIXMm5Ser
— Devin Heroux (@Devin_Heroux) October 29, 2022
Ledecky almost broke the 800m freestyle world record but fell short of time by under one second.
Other records are being broken at the Swimming Championships but not necessarily ones that members of the Australian Dolphins Swimming team would be happy about.
Ariarne Titmus’ world record for the 400m freestyle short course event was broken over the weekend by China’s Li Bingjie. The Chinese swimmer completed the race at a time of 3:51:30 which smashed Titmus’ by 2.6 seconds.
Titmus’ was pushed further down the record list in the freestyle event after Canadian teen Summer Mcintosh completed a time of 3:52.80 and Katie Ledecky finished at 3:52.88.
Short course events are raced in 25m pools as opposed to Olympic events which play out in a 50 m pool.
While Titmus has had her world record beaten, she will no doubt be looking to take it back at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
Australia’s Kyle Chalmer’s is placed at No.6 on the Men’s FINA World Cup Top 10 Standings while Maddison Wilson who hails from Queensland is placed at No.8.
The FINA championships will go to Indianapolis for the final stop of the competition.
