Category: Swimming & Diving

The teenage phenom from Canada is chasing five golds in Singapore, but her showdown with the sport’s longtime 800m free queen could signal a passing of the torch

For the first time in more than a decade, Katie Ledecky may not be the most feared swimmer in the pool. That honor now belongs to Summer McIntosh, the Canadian teenager looking to do what only Michael Phelps has done before her: win five individual gold medals at a single world swimming championships.

Their clash in the 800m freestyle on 2 August is set to be the defining moment of the weeklong meet in Singapore. Ledecky, the most decorated female swimmer in history, is bidding for an unprecedented seventh world title at the distance she has dominated since 2013. McIntosh, just 18, is the only swimmer to have beaten her at 800m in the past 15 years.

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Swim events at the World Aquatics Championships get under way this weekend as the Dolphins put the drawing board behind them

Barely an hour after the Australian swim team had completed a successful meet at the Paris Olympics, the Dolphins head coach, Rohan Taylor, was already looking to the future. “We’ll go back to the drawing board,” he said on the pool deck. “Performance by design” is one of his often-repeated mantras. So relentless is the pursuit of gold that the following morning, the Dolphins held a debriefing session to reflect on improvements ahead of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

In the year that followed, Australia’s swim stars have enjoyed time away from the pool. Some retired – the nation’s most successful Olympian of all time, Emma McKeon, brought the curtain down on her glittering career, and had a local pool named in her honour. Some tried their hand at other activities – 50m and 100m freestyle star Shayna Jack featured on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!, while middle-distance titan Ariarne Titmus is still out of the water, recently on commentary duties at the Australian swimming trials.

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• Compatriot Kyle Lee takes bronze in men’s 10km race in Singapore

• Events were postponed multiple times due to water quality concerns

Moesha Johnson has won Australia’s first 10km open water world title as compatriot Kyle Lee opened the team medal tally with bronze in the men’s race.

It is Australia’s fifth open water world title over all distances with Johnson and Lee in the quartet that will defend the mixed-team title at the Singapore world aquatics championships.

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• Penn settles Title IX case over Lia Thomas’ wins

• School will ban trans women from female sports

• Feds call it a victory for women and girls’ rights

The University of Pennsylvania has agreed to ban transgender women from its women’s sports teams to resolve a federal civil rights case that found the school violated the rights of female athletes.

The US Education Department announced the voluntary agreement Tuesday. The case focused on Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who last competed for the Ivy League school in Philadelphia in 2022, when she became the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title.

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• McIntosh breaks 400m IM world record in 4:23.65 time

• Third record broken in five days for Canadian teenager

• 18-year-old matches Phelps’ 2008 mark for single meet

Summer McIntosh broke her third swimming world record in five days on Wednesday night, clocking 4:23.65 in the women’s 400m individual medley at the Canadian Swimming Trials in Victoria, British Columbia.

The 18-year-old from Toronto lowered her own world record of 4:24.38, set earlier this year, and became the first swimmer to break world records in three different individual events at one long course meet since Michael Phelps at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

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• Schoolgirl wins 100m breaststroke to qualify for world championships

• Toohey only started swimming as she wanted to play water polo

A 16-year-old schoolgirl is being hailed as the future of Australian swimming after earning world championship selection. Sienna Toohey left seasoned campaigners including Kaylee McKeown in awe with a stunning swim at Australia’s selection trials in Adelaide on Tuesday night.

The Albury teenager, who only started swimming because she wanted to play water polo, triumphed in the women’s 100m breaststroke. Toohey’s victory, in a personal best time of 1:06.55, secured her berth at the world titles in Singapore from 27 July to 3 August.

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• 18-year-old adds 200m IM record to 400m freestyle mark

• Olympic champion also recorded third-fastest 800m freestyle

Summer McIntosh set a world record for the second time in three days at the Canadian swimming trials on Monday with the 18-year-old eclipsing Hungarian great Katinka Hosszu’s 200m individual medley mark set 10 years ago.

Three-times Olympic champion McIntosh, who set a world record in the 400m freestyle on Saturday, touched the wall in two minutes, 05.70 seconds to knock 0.42 off Hosszu’s time from the 2015 world championships in Kazan.

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• ‘I was in a really dark place mentally,’ says Kaylee McKeown

• Mollie O’Callaghan speaks of ‘immense pressure’ during Games

Kaylee McKeown was in a dark place and Mollie O’Callaghan suddenly realised she had no friends outside of her sport. They were two lost souls after swimming in the fish-bowl of the Paris Olympics.

“Coming off the Olympics, I was in a really dark place mentally,” McKeown said. “When you go from such a high, straight back to such a low, and you’re left scrambling for ideas on what you’re going to do next, it is hard to find your feet once again.”

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• Governing body bars athletes tied to Enhanced Games

• Vegas event allows PED use, offers $1m record bonuses

• Critics call it a ‘dangerous clown show’, not real sport

Swimmers, coaches and officials who compete in or support a controversial new sports event allowing performance-enhancing drugs will be barred from elite competition, World Aquatics announced on Tuesday.

The move targets the Enhanced Games, a privately funded, Olympics-style event set to debut in Las Vegas next May, which explicitly permits – and encourages – the use of substances banned under global anti-doping rules. Athletes will not be drug-tested and may follow personalized pharmaceutical regimens, provided they disclose their use to organizers.

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• King announces final US race at nationals in Indiana

• Olympic champ says she feels ‘fulfilled’ by her career

• Breaststroke star to retire after 2025 season ends

American three-time Olympic swimming star and world record holder Lilly King has announced the upcoming Toyota National Championships in Indianapolis will be her final meet on US soil as she prepares to call it a career at the conclusion of the 2025 season.

The meet will run Tuesday through Saturday. A longtime breaststroke stalwart, King announced her plans Saturday on Instagram and said swimming her final race in the US in her home state and a pool she’s known since her youth “has always been important to me”.

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• US swim star Ledecky smashes record set at Rio Games
• Gretchen Walsh sets world record in 100m butterfly

Katie Ledecky broke new ground once again on Saturday, shattering her own world record in the 800m freestyle with a time of 8min 4.12sec at the Tyr Pro Swim Series in Fort Lauderdale.

The 28-year-old American improved on the 8:04.79 mark she set at the 2016 Rio Olympics, notching her first long-course world record since 2018 and reaffirming her dominance in the distance freestyle events.

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• Ledecky beats McIntosh for another stunning win
• France’s Marchand makes return to competition
• USA’s Casas wins 100m freestyle, 50m backstroke

US freestyle great Katie Ledecky posted the second-fastest 400m free time of her storied career on Thursday, clocking 3min 56.81sec to run down Summer McIntosh for a second stunning victory in as many days at the TYR Pro Swim Series meeting in Florida.

Ledecky, who posted the second-fastest 1,500m free time in history on Wednesday, overshadowed the return to action of Paris Olympic star Leon Marchand, who posted a personal best in finishing third in the men’s 400m free in his first competition in four months.

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Daughter confirms swimming great broke four ribs and required a hip replacement after accident last week

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Dawn Fraser’s family has spoken of their fear of losing the Australian swimming great after she fell on the driveway of her home and sustained a broken hip and four broken ribs.

Fraser, 87, is convalescing in hospital after the “scary” incident last week that initially prompted fears she had suffered internal bleeding.

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• Olympic champion beats mark set during ‘shiny suit’ era
• 21-year-old in action at Short Course World Championships

US Olympic champion Gretchen Walsh continued her sparkling year by shattering the 15-year-old world record for the 50m butterfly on Tuesday.

The 21-year-old set a mark of 24.02 in the heats of the 50m butterfly on the opening morning of the Short Course World Championships in Budapest. The previous record was held by Sweden’s Therese Alshammar, whose time of 24.38 came during the so-called “shiny suit” era in 2009 when records fell regularly.

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