Ledecky Fails Titmus Test

In a gripping 400m freestyle final, Australian pips the US great in final stretch; three more face-offs likely in store at Tokyo

- Swaroop Swaminathan

THE women’s 400m freestyle final at the 2020 Olympics became a must-watch a year ahead of schedule (it became two because of the pandemic). On July 21, 2019, to be exact. It was going to be the highlight on the opening day of the World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea. Katie Ledecky had enjoyed serene progress from her heat to the final and was expected to keep dominating the event she had first conquered as a 16-year-old at the World Championships in 2013. She had set the world record, eclipsed it, set more world records, had run most of the fastest times and had added another Olympic gold at the event in Rio by the time 2019 rolled around. So that thinking was only fair. The 24-year old's only competition was herself. Just to ram home the gulf in class, she had set the fastest time in the heats, clocking 4:01.84.

What happened next, though, was a surprise. Australia’s Ariarne Titmus, who qualified second fastest clocking 4:02.42, beat the US athlete by more than one second. Her 3:58.76 was an Australian record and one of the fastest times ever clocked in the event by somebody not named Katie Ledecky. Ledecky finished second with a 3:59.97, a surprise considering the US athlete almost never finishes second in individual races. That wasn’t a flash in the pan though. Titmus, four years younger than Ledecky, swam quicker than Ledecky in this distance all through 2020.