Katie Ledecky is showing off Olympic form at this week’s Tyr Pro Meet, the biggest stage she’s been on since winning two gold medals and four medals overall in Paris last summer.
The legendary swimmer posted the second-fastest 400-metre freestyle time of her career on Thursday when she outlasted Canada’s Summer McIntosh at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Ledecky, 28, passed McIntosh in the final 50m to win in three minutes, 56.81 seconds, just shy of her American record 3:56.46 set when she won the event at the 2016 Olympics at Rio de Janeiro.
“I don’t know if I ever thought I would be 3:56 again,” Ledecky said of the time that rates as seventh best in history. “All the credit to Summer. It’s always a great race when we’re next to each other. I’m just really happy with all the work that I’ve put in to get to this point.”
McIntosh finished in 3:58.28 while American Claire Weinstein was third in 4:01.26.
WATCH | McIntosh ‘changing lanes’ in pursuit of 5 gold medals at 2028 Olympics:
The Toronto native and three-time Olympic champion will leave her Sarasota, Fla., training base following this summer’s world championship. Among her future options could be joining American coach Bob Bowman, former coach of Michael Phelps, in Texas.
The Canadian’s career-best time in the 400m free is 3:56.08, which she swam to at the Canadian Swimming Trials in March of 2023. That gave McIntosh the world record at the time, but Australia’s Ariarne Titmus holds the current record at 3:55.38.
The meet runs through Saturday.
WATCH |Â ‘She’s being so dramatic’: Summer McIntosh races high diver Molly Carlson:
The collab we didn’t know we needed! Canadian high diver Molly Carlson talks about what it was like to race fellow Red Bull athlete and Canadian swimming phenom Summer McIntosh. More of this please.
