World Championships: Gutsy Performance Lifts Ziegler to Gold in Metric Mile

By John Lohn

MELBOURNE, Australia, March 27. JANET Evans' 19-year-old world record might have survived another assault by Kate Ziegler, but the current queen of female distance swimming enhanced her legacy Tuesday night. Posting the second-fastest time in history, Ziegler put a major scare into the longest record on the books by winning the 1,500 freestyle.

Ahead of world-record pace for the majority of the 30-lap race, Ziegler fell off a bit at the end, but not enough to prevent the teenage sensation from defending her title. Ziegler was timed in 15:53.05, less than a second off Evans' 1988 record of 15:52.10. Ziegler now has two of the four-swiftest swims ever produced. She was 15:55.01 at last summer's Pan Pacific Champs.

Ziegler opened up a sizable lead during the early stages of the marathon swim and then held off a push by Switzerland's Flavia Rigamonti in the later moments. Rigamonti was timed in 15:55.38, the fifth-fastest time in history and the bronze medal went to Japan's Ai Shibata in 15:58.55. Rigamonti and Shibata became the fourth and fifth swimmers to break the 16-minute mark. The other is American Hayley Peirsol, who was fifth, just behind Spain's Erika Villaecija.

"I felt really strong for the first 1,000 and then it started hurting real bad," Ziegler said. "But it's a best time and I dropped two seconds. I'm really happy. I did see (Rigamonti) at the end and that pushed me."

Click Here to view event results PDF file.

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