American 17-year old Katie Ledecky has taken another half-a-second off of her World Record in the women’s 400 free on Saturday evening at the 2014 Pan Pac Championships in Australia. There, she swam a 3:58.37, which broke her own 3:58.86 done at the U.S. National Championships on August 9th.
This swim, as compared to the one exactly two weeks earlier, was quite differently paced. While any swimmer breaking World Records in a distance event is going to be out at an impressive pace, and this swim by Ledecky was no different, her first 200 meters here in Australia were more than half-a-second slower than at Nationals.
The difference-maker on the record came from pure mental-toughness: on the second-to-last 50, where in Irvine Ledecky looked like she caught a bit of a net to a 31.01 split, she instead kept her pacing consistent on Saturday: swimming a 30.33.
The full comparative splits are below:
| Ledecky (New WR) | Ledecky (Old WR |
| 27.85 | 28.03 |
| 30.02 | 29.71 |
| 30.04 | 29.93 |
| 30.39 | 30.05 |
| 30.07 | 30.23 |
| 30.37 | 30.45 |
| 30.33 | 31.01 |
| 29.30 | 29.45 |
| 3:58.37 | 3:58.86 |
| Ledecky (New WR) | Ledecky (Old WR |
| 27,95 | 28.03 |
| 57.87 | 57.74 |
| 1:27.91 | 1:27.67 |
| 1:58.30 | 1:57.72 |
| 2:28.37 | 2:27.95 |
| 2:58.74 | 2:58.40 |
| 3:29.07 | 3:29.41 |
| 3:58.37 | 3:58.86 |
This event has been the record that eluded Ledecky. Even when she was crushing World Records in the 800 and the 1500, this event that she’s had to improve her speed on to contend in has been just outside of her grasp.
Now, however, this event is looking just as good as her other two, and Ledecky is looking just as untouchable in the event.
Am sure she will be gunning for sub 3.58 by or before Rio.
She swam it smarter this time!
Her pacing was better this time. But at Nationals she needed to set the record, and maybe the way she swam there was a smart way to accomplish that goal.
What is going to be interesting is watching how many of the ladies step it up and follow Ledecky into the sub-4 range. They don’t have any other choice. She is either going to leave them further behind or force them to go with her. I predict we will see some youngsters start to make huge improvements in the next couple years as the coaches will need to up the quality intensity in order to get try and close the gap.
She is amazing.
The splitting for this race is amazing. Every age group/senior coach in the world needs to be taking these results to practice and saying, “see! [points at meet mobile]” “SEE!!”
Exactly!
Last year Ledecky was ranked #1 by 2.65s in the 400, by 2.46s in the 800 and by 2.35s in the 1500. She had the largest margin the shortest event. I think the 400 was her best event last year.
It’s exciting to be a US swimming fan right now! We have been blessed with many amazing role-models for our young athletes in US swimming history, and are lucky enough to have a handful of them on our team right now! I never thought I’d live to see another swimmer like Janet Evans, but in the end Katie may surpass her achievements!
I want to point out that Cierra Runge’s time in this final was only 0.02 second slower than Janet Evans’ Chsmpionship Record which stood until Katie’s performance. She is also a valuable addition to our team!
That was amazing!!