American Katie Ledecky is 95% sure that she’ll swim the 800 freestyle at Worlds after scratching both the 200 and 1500 frees.
That’s according to Washington Post writer Rick Maese on Twitter:
Katie Ledecky said she’s 95 percent sure she’ll be swimming in the 800 meter race on Friday at the FiNA world championships
— Rick Maese (@RickMaese) July 25, 2019
Maese reported that Ledecky said she’s 95 percent sure she’ll swim the event on Friday. Ledecky has been dealing with illness this week in Gwangju. She scratched out of the 1500 free final on Tuesday, where she was the heavy favorite, defending champ and world record-holder. She also bowed out of the 200 free heats that morning, citing illness.
Ledecky returned to action today on the 4×200 free relay, helping Team USA win silver and break the American record, though her 1:54.61 split was about eight tenths slower than what she went on that relay at Pan Pacs last summer.
She’s now saying she’s likely to compete in the 800 free, where she’ll remain the heavy favorite, even with her health in doubt. Ledecky is the fastest swimmer in history in the event by 9.4 seconds, and the next-closest active swimmer is almost ten seconds behind Ledecky’s lifetime-best. Last season, she had the world’s best time by 9.2 seconds.
Ledecky’s return comes at the right time for Team USA, which has generally struggled at this year’s World Championships. The Americans did surge to the medal table lead with a pair of gold medals today, but their dominance has fallen way short of what it typically has in Olympics or World Championships.
Huge respect!!! One tough lady.
Is Titmus swimming the 800?
Whilst its clear she’s wanting to swim the 800, it may still be a case of seeing how she’d feeling in the morning and during any warm-up. Whilst her relay split was not her fastest, she still had to “dig deep” to pull that out as evidenced by it taking @190m of her allowed 200 to catch pass Wilson. I want to see her there but commonsense needs to prevail
She shouldn’t go any faster than she needs to in the heats even if it seems against her nature for her to swim slow and barely make it. She will be in the last seeded heat so she will know exactly the time needed. Then she gets 30 hrs of rest til the final.
I’m 100% sure Ledecky will swim 800.
You can mark my comment.
I’m 100% sure Ledecky will win 800.
You can mark my comment.
How brave of her!!!
Do we know what kind of ahem condition she was afflicted with?
Seconditis
Gold toxicity, my friend–too much exposure to gold medals.
https://www.dovemed.com/diseases-conditions/gold-toxicity/#
Viral gastroenteritis
Don’t know what to expect. She looked pretty fresh at post race interview. At the same time she hasn’t happened to be a decisive factor at this relay as she used to be. With the reaction time of 0.26sec I would convert her relay result to something like 1:54.9 – 1:55.0 in individual race. And that is either the reflection of her current medical conditions that zeroed the tapering effect or that is actually what we should’ve expected based on her in-season results. So I will be glad to see her at 8:10 hoping that it will be still too much for Quadarella or Wang.
Does that mean that 5% won’t show up?
Nah. She will swim it.
She was sick and probably lost 5% of her body weight