{"id":592561,"date":"2024-07-27T12:13:41","date_gmt":"2024-07-27T19:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=592561"},"modified":"2024-07-27T14:51:57","modified_gmt":"2024-07-27T21:51:57","slug":"paris-olympics-day-1-finals-ariarne-titmus-pulls-away-from-mcintosh-ledecky-to-secure-repeat-400-freestyle-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/paris-olympics-day-1-finals-ariarne-titmus-pulls-away-from-mcintosh-ledecky-to-secure-repeat-400-freestyle-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"Paris Olympics, Day 1 Finals: Ariarne Titmus Pulls Away From McIntosh, Ledecky to Secure Repeat 400 Freestyle Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paris Olympics, Day 1 Finals: Ariarne Titmus Pulls Away From McIntosh, Ledecky to Secure Repeat 400 Freestyle Gold<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the first women’s swimming gold medal of the Olympic Games set to be decided over the ensuing four minutes, standing behind starting blocks in adjacent lanes were three heavily-accomplished swimmers, all essentially national heroes in their country of origin. With respective ages of 27, 23 and 17, the three women entered the Olympics at vastly different stages of their careers but all with similar ambitions of massive accomplishments this week in Paris. They dove off the blocks and raced a final anticipated by swimming enthusiasts for years.<\/p>\n

Lane four was Katie Ledecky<\/strong> of the United States, a swimmer who has taken freestyle to never-before-seen heights over the last 12 years. Next to her was Australia’s Ariarne Titmus<\/strong>, the first woman to bridge the gap to Ledecky in one of her signature events and now the defending Olympic champion and world-record holder. And on the other side of Titmus stood Canada’s\u00a0Summer McIntosh<\/strong>, who finished fourth in this event three years ago as a 14-year-old and has since blossomed into a multi-time world champion and world-record holder.<\/p>\n

Race of the century? Hardly. Not with Titmus unleashing domination right off the gun.<\/p>\n

The Aussie flipped a tenth clear of McIntosh at the 50-meter mark. Catch up with the fast-finishing Australian? Unlikely for anyone, even swimmers as accomplished as McIntosh and Ledecky. Indeed, Titmus was out-split on exactly one of the eight 50-meter lengths. Flipping at 1:56.97 at the halfway point, the world record was in range throughout, but Titmus would not find the same gear she used on the way to her top time of 3:55.38.<\/p>\n

Titmus finished in 3:57.49, the ninth-quickest effort in history and a mark that only she, McIntosh and Ledecky have ever surpassed.<\/p>\n

“I feel relieved. It\u2019s a different feeling it again after the first time. I know what it takes to be an Olympic champion, and I know how hard it is racing in these circumstances at an Olympic Games. It\u2019s not really like anything else. The noise and atmosphere and pressure and (Olympic) Village life definitely makes performing well hard, but it feels really nice to come out on top,” Titmus said.<\/p>\n

“I felt pretty good the whole way. I have no idea what my splits were. I definitely started to feel it in the last 100. I left everything out there.”<\/p>\n

McIntosh finished in 3:58.37 to clinch her first Olympic medal in what is expected to be a busy week for the young Canadian, who will also race both individual medley races plus the 200 butterfly.<\/p>\n

“It’s definitely pretty surreal. Going into tonight I really just wanted to put my best foot forward and race as hard as I could. Overall I’m pretty happy with the result,” McIntosh said. “An Olympics is always pretty nerve-racking and there’s a lot of anticipation going into each race, so (I’m) kind of learning how to deal with that and also trying to feed off the crowd.”<\/p>\n

Bronze went to Ledecky in 4:00.86, two-and-a-half seconds short of the 3:58.30 she clocked at the U.S. Olympic Trials but good enough to secure the 11th Olympic medal \u2014 and interestingly, first bronze \u2014 of her career.<\/p>\n

Ledecky was never ahead of the top-two, battling New Zealand’s Erika Fairweather<\/strong> and American teammate\u00a0Paige Madden<\/strong> for third place through much of the race. She was one-and-a-half seconds ahead of Fairweather heading into the final length, and she needed almost that entire advantage as Fairweather closed in 29.50 on the way to a final time of 4:01.12. Germany’s\u00a0Isabel Gose\u00a0<\/strong>took fifth in 4:02.14, just ahead of Madden’s sixth-place time of 4:02.26.<\/p>\n

“It feels good. I would’ve liked to have been a little faster tonight. Been faster a few times this season, but you can’t complain with the medal. Happy to get the medal and get two days of rest and try to be better the rest of the week,” Ledecky said.<\/p>\n

“There are always things I want to do better, even in my great races. There\u2019s a lot of things I would like to do better. I looked at my splits, there was nothing horrible. I didn\u2019t have it the last 200, 250 like I wanted to… I just couldn\u2019t kick into that next gear I wanted to finish it out. It was such a good field, there was a chance I could not have gotten a medal. I\u2019m grateful for that.”<\/p>\n