World Aquatics Championships 2023: Ariarne Titmus breaks world record to take women's 400m freestyle gold
The Australian led from the start in Fukuoka, finishing comfortably clear of Katie Ledecky with Erika Fairweather pushing Summer McIntosh out of the medals on the opening night of the swimming competition.
Swimming
Reigning Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus won the women's 400m freestyle in a new world record of 3 minutes, 55.38 seconds at the World Aquatics Championships 2023 on Sunday (23 July).
The 22-year-old shaved seven-tenths of a second off the old mark held by Summer McIntosh, who was overtaken by New Zealand's Erika Fairweather to finish fourth.
Katie Ledecky took second - but more than three-tenths behind Titmus.
"I was really excited for this race coming in tonight, I haven't really raced the best in the world since the Olympics," Titmus said afterwards. “Katie and Summer always put on a great fight and I'm glad we could put on a show."
As at Tokyo 2020 in 2021, Titmus' success was gleefully celebrated by her coach Dean Boxall.
The Australian led from the start with McIntosh and Ledecky giving chase.
Ledecky moved into second with just over 100m to go, but had no chance of closing the gap on Titmus who went further clear at the front.
The American, who was defending her title and seeking to add to her 19 World Championship gold medals, had nothing but praise for the winner.
“I can’t really complain. I executed the race the way I wanted to,” she said. “I thought Ariarne and Summer would be out fast so I just wanted to stay in contact and go from there.
“I felt like I did that but Ariarne just took off and lost contact."
There was also gold for Australia in the men’s 400m freestyle as compatriot Samuel Short just held off Tunisia's Olympic champion Ahmed Hafnaoui.
Short looked like he had settled matters coming into the final length, but Hafnaoui fought back in a thrilling finish and lost out by just two-hundredths of a second.
The pair were on world record pace for much of the race, but Short's winning time of 3:40.68 put him fourth on the all-time list with Paul Biedermann's 3:40.07 from 2009 standing for another day.