{"id":141723,"date":"2015-07-06T17:01:44","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T00:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=141723"},"modified":"2015-07-06T17:01:45","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T00:01:45","slug":"leah-smith-crushes-universiade-record-in-400-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/leah-smith-crushes-universiade-record-in-400-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Leah Smith Crushes Universiade Record in 400 Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coverage of the 2015 World University Games is proudly sponsored by adidas<\/a>;. Visit Swimming World\u2019s\u00a0event coverage page<\/a> for live results and recaps.<\/i><\/p>\n

USA’s Leah Smith<\/strong> certainly woke the fans up this morning at the World University Games with a blistering time in the women’s 400-meter free as she blasted her lifetime best and crushed the meet record.<\/p>\n

Smith raced her way to a sizzling time of 4:04.66 in prelims, crushing Federica Pellegrini’s<\/strong> 2007 meet record of 4:06.11. That’s also way faster than Smith’s lifetime best of 4:06.28 from last summer’s nationals.<\/p>\n

Smith vaulted to fourth in the world with this morning’s swim.<\/p>\n

400 Free World rankings<\/strong><\/p>\n[table \u201c\u201d not found \/]
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Smith is definitely serving notice that she’s up to the task to be America’s second line of defense behind Katie Ledecky<\/strong> in terms of the middle to distance freestyle in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Italy’s Martina De Memme<\/strong> qualified well behind with a 4:11.24 for the second seed, while USA’s Lindsay Vrooman<\/strong> posted a third-seeded 4:11.96.<\/p>\n

Japan’s Asami Chida<\/strong> (4:13.85), Australia’s Kiah Melverton<\/strong> (4:14.20), Poland’s Justyna Burska<\/strong> (4:15.00), Italy’s Martina Caramignoli<\/strong> (4:16.29) and Canada’s Barbara Rojas-Jardin<\/strong> (4:17.97) also made the finale.<\/p>\n

SCHEDULED EVENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n