Australian Ariarne Titmus has won the gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle at the World Cup in Fukuoka (Japan) thanks to a stellar performance, with a world record included. With a time of 3m55s38c, she has become the first woman to drop under 56 seconds in this test, beating the American Katie Ledecky, who was second.
The swimmer from the United States has been too conservative at the start of the event and has run out of time to close the gap that her Australian rival has opened. Ledecky had to settle for the silver medal, with a time of 3m58s73c. The bronze has been for the New Zealander Erika Fairwather (3m59s59c). The previous world record was held by Summer MacIntosh (3m56s08c), who was fourth. At the age of 16, she is one of the great promises of swimming.
It was the first time since the Tokyo Games that defending world champion Katie Ledecky and current Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus had faced each other in the pool.
The clash between the trio of Ledecky, Titmus and MacIntosh had been dubbed the “race of the century”, 20 years after Ian Thorpe beat Pieter van den Hoogenband and Michael Phelps at the 2004 Athens Olympics and it was Titmus who set the score for next year’s Paris Games.
In the men’s event, the gold went to the Australian Sam Short, who won the queen event by just two hundredths of a second over Olympic champion Ahmed Hafnaoui. With a time of 3 minutes, 40 seconds and 68 hundredths, he was proclaimed champion in a test whose podium was completed by the German Lukas Martens.
