{"id":507452,"date":"2022-06-23T02:57:38","date_gmt":"2022-06-23T09:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=507452"},"modified":"2022-06-23T07:18:29","modified_gmt":"2022-06-23T14:18:29","slug":"world-championships-the-great-katie-ledecky-chasing-a-19th-gold-lani-palllister-and-leah-smith-in-podium-battle-in-800m-freestyle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/world-championships-the-great-katie-ledecky-chasing-a-19th-gold-lani-palllister-and-leah-smith-in-podium-battle-in-800m-freestyle\/","title":{"rendered":"World Championships: The Great Katie Ledecky Chasing a 19th Gold; Lani Palllister and Leah Smith in Podium Battle in 800m Freestyle"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Championships: The Great Katie Ledecky Chasing a 19th Gold<\/strong><\/p>\n

Victory in tomorrow night’s 800m freestyle final will extend the Katie Ledecky<\/strong>\u00a0World Championship winning tally to a staggering 19 gold medals\u00a0 and 22 medals overall – re-affirming the US superstar as the greatest female swimmer of all time.<\/p>\n

It would take “The Great Ledecky” past former US teammate Ryan Lochte <\/strong>(18 gold) with swimming’s all-time GOAT Michael Phelps <\/strong>on top of the world with 26 gold medals.<\/p>\n

The 25- year-old Ledecky has already won three gold medals in Budapest – the 400 and 1500m freestyle and in the USA’s victorious 4x200m freestyle relay.<\/p>\n

Ledecky started her world championship career with four gold in Budapest in 2013; five gold in Kazan in 2015; five gold and one silver in Budapest in 2017; one gold and two silver in Gwangju in 2019 and so far three gold in Budapest.<\/p>\n

The 800m gold would also be will be a record fifth consecutive world title over the distance – a run which started in Shanghai in 2013 and followed in Kazan (2015), Budapest (2017) and Gwangju (2019) – continuing to build on a remarkable reign.<\/p>\n

Ledecky led through the 200m in 1:59.42 and the 400m in 4:01.98 – a time that would have been fast enough for bronze in the individual 400m freestyle on the opening night of these championships – stopping the clock at 8:17.51 – with Australia’s Lani Pallister<\/strong> (8:24.66) –\u00a0 second and qualifying second overall ahead of the winner of the first of the seeded heats, Ledecky’s team mate, 400m freestyle bronze medallist Leah Smith<\/strong> (8:25.19).<\/p>\n

Smith was also a member of the gold medal winning 4x200m freestyle team with Ledecky<\/p>\n

Other qualifiers are Bingiie Li<\/strong> (China) 8:27.19, Isabel Gose<\/strong> (Germany) 8:27.69, Eve Thomas<\/strong> (Nee Zealand) 8:27.82) the 2019 world champion in the 1500m, Simona Quadarella<\/strong> (Italy) 8:27.96) and Tokyo Olympic finalist Kiah Melverton<\/strong> (Australia) 8:30.68).<\/p>\n