Ledecky sets another world record at Pan Pacific Games

Olympian Katie Ledecky broke the world, American and meet records in the women’s 400-meter freestyle Saturday at the Pan Pacific Championships in Gold Coast, Australia, turning in a time of 3:58.37.

“It’s a great feeling,” said Ledecky, a high school senior who has committed to Stanford. “It never really gets old. I knew I could be right at what I was a couple weeks ago at Nationals or a little better, so I’m really pleased with that.”

Her swim was one of three gold medals for the Americans on the third night of competition. Also winning gold for the United States were fellow Olympians Michael Phelps in the men’s 100 butterfly and Tyler Clary in the men’s 200 backstroke.

For the third straight night, Team USA finished the session with 10 medals: three gold, four silver and three bronze. That brings the Americans’ total medal count for the week to 30: 11 gold, eight silver and 11 bronze. They lead all teams in both gold medal count and total medals won.

The U.S. finished the night off with a pair of silvers in the women’s and men’s 400m free relay. The women’s team of Incoming Stanford freshman Simone Manuel, Missy Franklin, Abbey Weitzeil and Shannon Vreeland finished about two seconds behind Australia in 3:34.23, while the men’s Michael Phelps, Nathan Adrian, Anthony Ervin and Ryan Lochte came out on the short end of a close race, touching about a half second behind Australia in 3:13.36.

Ledecky dove in and took the lead of the 400 free from the start, leaving the rest of the field racing for second. The only question was whether or not she would break the world record of 3:58.86 she set two weeks ago at the Phillips 66 National Championships in Irvine.

She was ahead of world-record pace at the first 50, but fell off for the rest of the race until the final 50 meters. With the crowd cheering her on, she hammered her way home, touching the wall about a half second ahead of the former mark.

It was Ledecky’s fourth win of the meet after taking gold in the 200 free, 800 free and 800 free relay.

“I knew based on my swim from Nationals that my fifth, sixth and seventh 50s had to be a lot better, because I think I fell off the world-record place at Nationals on the seventh 50 and split a little slower,” Ledecky said. “So I knew if I could just work those and have a good, solid first 200 that it would be a good swim.”

Competing in the “B” finals, Stanford grad Felicia Lee finished ninth in the women’s 100-meter fly in 58.37.

Stanford grad Geoffrey Cheah, competing for Hong Kong, finished 14th overall in the 100 fly and helped Hong Kong to a sixth place finish in the 400 free relay.

By USA Swimming/Palo Alto Online Sports

By USA Swimming/Palo Alto Online Sports

By USA Swimming/Palo Alto Online Sports