Katie Ledecky Posts World’s Fastest 200 Free in Santa Clara

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

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The second night of the 2018 TYR Pro Swim Series Santa Clara will feature men’s and women’s finals of the 400 IM, 100 Fly, 200 Back, 200 Breast and 200 Free. After the Indiana post-graduate group dominated the 1500 on night one, future and current Stanford swimmers took three of the top seeds for tonight’s finals.

Katie Ledecky, in her first professional race associated with TYR, claimed the top seed in the 200 Free – as did future Cardinal Jack Levant in the men’s race. Ella Eastin will start the session off with her top seed in the 400 IM, looking for the win in this event after narrowly losing out on the victory to Melanie Margalis in Indianapolis.

Veteran Chase Kalisz will set out to keep his 400 IM win streak alive, as will Kelsi Dahlia in the 100 fly. Cal’s Andrew Seliskar leads a competitive 100 Fly men’s field after the morning heats including the likes of Caeleb Dressel and Jack Conger.

16-year-old Regan Smith and reigning Olympic-Champion Ryan Murphy hold top honors in the 200 Back while Lilly King and Miguel de Lara Ojeda did likewise in the 200 Breast.

Women’s 200 Free

Only one-tenth off her Pro Swim Series record from 2016, Ledecky posted the world’s fastest time in the 200 free this year at 1:54.56. The swim was enough to pass Taylor Ruck’s Commonwealth Games performance of 1:54.81 as well as Melanie Margalis and Leah Smith in Santa Clara.

Margalis earned second place with a solid 1:57.99 season best time while Smith raced to a 1:58.20. Smith had a half second advantage at the 100 but could not withstand the consistency of Margalis’ splits along the way.

McLaughlin raced to a fourth place finish in 1:59.53 followed by Gabby Deloof (1:59.75), Oleksiak (2:00.62), Goss (2:02.52), Isabel Ivey (2:03.33) and Meaghan Raab (2:06.00).

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