Katie Ledecky extended her 15-year win streak in the 1500m freestyle and broke career medal ties with Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte at the World Swimming Championships on Tuesday.
Ledecky earned her sixth title in the 1500m free and 22nd world title overall.
She clocked 15 minutes, 26.44 seconds in Singapore, comfortably prevailing by 5.35 seconds over Italian Simona Quadarella.
“Each one has meaning, and I love every race that I’ve had at worlds over the years,” Ledecky said on Peacock.
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It was actually Ledecky’s closest 1500m free at an Olympics or worlds since her first title in 2013.
Credit Quadarella, who became the second-fastest woman in history in the event by 7.09 seconds over Dane Lotte Friis’ silver medal time from 2013. It’s still 11.31 seconds shy of Ledecky’s world record, though.
“I knew that if I started hurting at any point, somebody was going to be right there to come charging at the end,” said Ledecky, who at 450 meters was three seconds under her world record pace from 2018.
Ledecky entered the race with the top 24 times in history. She swam the fifth-best time ever Tuesday but leaves with the top 11 times with Quadarella now slotting at No. 12.
Ledecky last lost a 1500m free at the 2010 Potomac Valley Championships in her native Maryland — as a 13-year-old to a 17-year-old Kaitlin Pawlowicz.
“(Ledecky) was leading and her cap came off,” Pawlowicz said in 2016, according to Yahoo Sports.
Ledecky earned her 28th world medal of any color, breaking her tie with Lochte for second all-time behind Phelps’ 33.
She won a 21st individual medal, breaking her tie with Phelps for second all-time behind Swede Sarah Sjostrom’s 23.
Ledecky has two events left at these worlds: the 4x200m free relay on Thursday and the 800m free, the most anticipated race of the meet due to a likely showdown with Canadian Summer McIntosh. That final is Saturday.
Also Tuesday, Australian Kaylee McKeown swam the second-fastest women’s 100m backstroke in history — 57.16 seconds — to overtake American Regan Smith. McKeown dislocated a shoulder in the weeks leading up to a pre-worlds training camp.
“I’ve got a really flexible stroke, and it’s to my benefit when I swim my backstroke but sometimes it can cause me to dislocate my shoulder,” she said, according to Swimming Australia. “It’s been quite irritated but I’ve got a good medical team and physiotherapists to help me get through.”
Fellow American Katharine Berkoff took bronze in a repeat of the Paris Olympic podium.
Smith, the world record holder at 57.13, and McKeown combine to own the top 25 times in history.
McKeown swims to CR to win 100m back at worlds
Kaylee McKeown’s championship-record time of 57.16 seconds landed her the win in the 100m backstroke at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships, with U.S. swimmers Regan Smith and Katharine Berkoff rounding out the podium.
Romanian David Popovici rallied past American Luke Hobson in the last 50 meters to win the 200m free in 1:43.53. Hobson took silver in 1:43.84, one year after earning bronze behind gold medalist Popovici at the Olympics.
“Three days before the competition started, I experienced something I’ve never experienced before, namely being afraid,” Popovici said, according to a translation of a Romanian sports website GSP report. “Wishing I could go home. This fear gripped me. I even started looking for return tickets. I asked my dad to take care of it, to let everyone know that I wouldn’t be competing anymore. I felt sorry for all the people who came and bought tickets, family, etc. But I felt like I couldn’t go on. And, as I was telling them earlier, not out of fear of losing or, I don’t know, not running the times that people expected me to run, but out of fear of reaching my own potential. And precisely because this year I started to feel really good in training, to reach times that I’ve never reached before, to have an excellent competition in Slovakia a month ago. … All of this made me realize how close I could get to what I thought were the limits of swimming and my own limits. And the moment I saw that I could somehow reach that potential and see it so close, I was overcome with incredible fear.”
Olympic 200m breaststroke gold medalist Kate Douglass gave the U.S. a third silver of the session. She finished runner-up to German Anna Elendt in the 100m breast.
Elendt, a former Texas Longhorn, was 20th at the 2024 Olympics after taking silver at the 2022 Worlds.
Douglass lowered her personal best in both the semifinals and final in an event she never previously swam at a major international meet.
Douglass, 23, is now up to 16 career World Championships medals — all since 2022 — including individual medals in the 200m individual medley (two golds), 50m free and 100m and 200m breaststrokes.
Pieter Coetze of South Africa rallied from third at the 50 to take the men’s 100m back in 51.85. Coetze matched the third-best time in history in relegating Olympic champion Thomas Ceccon of Italy to silver.
Worlds continue all week with preliminary heats at 10 p.m. ET and finals at 7 a.m., live on Peacock.
Wednesday’s finals feature Olympic champion Bobby Finke in the men’s 800m freestyle.
Popovici edges Hobson for men’s 200m free gold
David Popovici of Romania touched the wall just 0.31 seconds ahead of U.S. swimmer Luke Hobson to secure the gold medal in the men’s 200m freestyle at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.
Katie Ledecky eyes the longest reign in World Championships history. Summer McIntosh wants to end it.
