The first showdown in the pool between rivals American Katie Ledecky and Australia’s Ariarne Titmus at the Tokyo Olympics did not disappoint.
Titmus came out on top of Ledecky in the absolutely thrilling 400-meter freestyle final Monday morning in Japan (and Sunday night in Tokyo), and the race came down to the final few strokes.
Ledecky opened the mid-distance final with a strong first 200, and the 24-year-old world record holder and gold medalist from the 2016 Rio Games remained in control of the first half of the race. But in the next lane, 20-year-old Titmus started to make a move on Ledecky going into the 300-meter mark, and when they hit the wall for the final 100 meters, Titmus trailed Ledecky by just .16 seconds.
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By the time they turned for the final 50, Titmus had a .22 lead over Ledecky and held on to win gold with a time of 3:56.69 — the second-fastest time in history behind Ledecky’s world record of 3:56.46 from the 2016 Olympics. This was Titmus’ first Olympic medal.
Ledecky took silver at 3:57.36 — the fourth-fastest time in history — and China’s Li Bingjie won bronze at 4:01.08. American Paige Madden finished seventh with a time of 4:06.81.
This is the first time Ledecky didn’t win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event.
And although fans of Ledecky’s have come to expect her to dominate and she entered the final with the fastest seed time, she actually wasn’t favored to win this event going into the Olympics. At the Australian trials last month, Titmus came within half a second of Ledecky’s world record in the 400 free with a time of 3:56.90 — which was the fastest time in the world this year until she won gold.
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Titmus also beat Ledecky in the 400 free at the 2019 world championships after chasing Ledecky down in the final 50 meters.
And after the 400 free final at the Tokyo Games, Ledecky and Titmus hugged it out.
This probably isn’t the last time Ledecky and Titmus will go head-to-head at the Games. Ledecky is likely going to race for at least 6,000 meters this week, and the pair are set to face off in the 200-meter freestyle and 800-meter freestyle — but Ledecky is still a heavy favorite in the latter.
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