Titmus back to World record

On the heels of the eye-popping men’s 400m freestyle final at the 2023 World Aquatics Championship, Fukuoka the women’s edition of the event was also one for the history books. This may be the race of the Century.

With the top 3 swiftest performers in history taking to the pool, we knew it would take a groundbreaking swim to wind up on top.

Australian Ariarne Titmus silenced the doubters taking back her World Record en route to gold this evening in Fukuoka.

The 22-year-old Olympic champion punched a time of 3:55.38 to become the first-ever woman to delve under the 3:56 threshold in this event.

The previous WR mark stood at the 3:56.08 Canadian teen phenom Summer McIntosh ripped at the Canadian World Championship Trials just this past March. McIntosh took the WR from Titmus who previously held the standard at the 3:56.40 set at the 2022 Australian Swimming Championships.

That was one year after Titmus became the Olympic gold medalist in Tokyo, scoring a time thereof 3:56.69.

Tonight, American Katie Ledecky roared back from being well behind at the 250m mark to secure silver in 3:58.73 while New Zealand’s Erika Fairweather joined the sub-4:00 club with a big-time personal best of 3:59.59 to also land on the podium. Fairweather is 5th to join the sub 4:00:00 Club.

For her part, 16-year-old McIntosh found herself off the podium, clocking 3:59.94 for 4th place.

Titmus is entered in the 200m free and 800m free events here and will also race on her nation’s 4x200m freestyle relay. She is expected to two more world records.