World Aquatics Championships Singapore 2025: Artistic swimming women duet free final
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CTV News
4 hours ago
- CTV News
Katie Ledecky looks toward ‘exciting' head to head with Summer McIntosh at World Aquatics Championships
With the swimming portion of the World Aquatics Championships approaching, all eyes will be on Katie Ledecky, the most decorated female swimmer in history, as she goes head to head with teen sensation Summer McIntosh. Ledecky, who has nine Olympic gold medals and a staggering 21 World Championship titles, has dominated women's swimming for more than a decade and looks toward this year's championships in Singapore with an eager eye. 'Each of my events, there's a different challenge and I'm just excited to see what kind of times I can put up and how I can race,' she told CNN Sports. For years, the only person the American has had to worry about threatening her records is herself. But despite still amassing wins and accolades, Ledecky – whose early career was characterized by outrageously fast times – hadn't bagged a world record in seven years. That was until this May, when she shaved six-tenths of a second off a world record she set almost a decade ago in the women's 800m freestyle – signalling a return to her trademark speed and power, and a hunger to keep pushing swimming's limits. 'It was more than just the world record to me. It was going the best time… I think every swimmer knows that feeling, you know, that feeling of going at best time and being better than you've ever been. And for me, that just happened to be the world record in that event, and so that was an added bonus,' she explained. However, at this year's world championships, Canadian teenager Summer McIntosh will be providing the usually dominant Ledecky some fierce competition. The 18-year-old McIntosh set three world records at the Canadian Swimming trials in June, smashing the 400m freestyle world record in some style with a time of 3:54.18, as well as breaking the 200m individual medley (IM) world record and her own 400m IM mark from May last year. With four Olympic medals already to her name – three of them gold – McIntosh is on a path to swimming immortality, and at this year's Championships, she is aiming to win five individual gold medals, a feat only previously achieved by the legendary Michael Phelps. McIntosh is also edging closer to Ledecky's domain: last month, she set a new Canadian record in the 800m freestyle with 8:05.07 – which was just 0.95 seconds short of Ledecky's time. The two will go head to head in the 800m freestyle in Singapore, the first time McIntosh has competed in the event at the world championships in a direct challenge to Ledecky's – who is a six-time world champion in this event – dominance. 'I've gotten to race Summer a lot over the years now. I think for the first time I raced her in Tokyo and she was just 14 years old, and I think at that point, you could see that she had a bright future ahead of her,' Ledecky told CNN Sports. She added: 'We will race the 400 and the 800 against each other. And there'll be some other great competition in those races as well. So I think it's exciting.' Speaking of her incredible 800m free performance earlier this year, she said: 'It was my best time. It was the world record that Summer's been, you know, continuing to drop time in every event. 'It should be some exciting races and I'm just gonna put my best foot forward and see what I can do.' McIntosh is also up to the challenge, explaining in a video conference on July 9: 'One of the many reasons I picked 800 is because, in my opinion, it is the biggest challenge. Katie is so strong and in her top form this season, so that match-up will be awesome. 'I think we bring the best out of each other.' Training to win Ledecky has been preparing for her seventh World Championships rigorously, training for around 25 to 30 hours a week – swimming 10 times a week and working out five times a week. Her downtime is just as important as her training, she explained: 'It's hours that people don't think about that are just as important. How I'm fueling my body, how I am resting, how I'm recovering.' She added that along with physical preparation, she places great emphasis on mental readiness. 'I think every day that I'm in the water at practice, I'm visualizing racing situations that I am in, or I'm just thinking about my goals, my times, my paces, my technique, all the different things that I need to be thinking about and being diligent about,' Ledecky explained. 'I've had really great coaches … that have believed in me and believed that some of my best swimming is ahead of me and that's what we're working toward every day.' Although Ledecky is undeniably proud of her record-breaking achievements, she is most happy with her career as a whole. 'I think, you know, what I'm probably happiest with is just the consistency that I've had over the years,' she told CNN Sports. 'I never imagined I would make it even to one Olympics and so anything after that first gold medal at my first Olympics when I was 15 has been kind of icing on the cake. Everything's just been extra from then on out. 'It's kind of freeing there's no pressure. Certainly, I put pressure on myself, but I always remind myself of that and that takes the pressure off.' The swimming competitions at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore run from July 27 to August 3.
CTV News
9 hours ago
- CTV News
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Winnipeg Watch Jeff Wood, Performance Manager at Sport Manitoba, shares how athletes are preparing for high-level competition at the upcoming Canada Games.
CBC
10 hours ago
- CBC
Canada's backstroke big-gamer Kylie Masse focused on aquatics worlds, not 2028 Olympics
The best women's backstroker Canada has ever produced refuses to look deep into the future. Five-time Olympic medallist Kylie Masse of LaSalle, Ont., has her mind on the world swimming championship starting Saturday in Singapore, and not on Los Angeles in 2028. The 50-metre backstroke added to the Olympic swim program in 2028 seems a boon for one of the best in the world at it, but the 29-year-old has yet to decide if she'll compete in her fourth Olympic Games. "I am still in a position where I'm just kind of taking it moment by moment and figuring it out, and I'm not really putting any pressure on myself to commit to that at this point," Masse said. "I am excited to see what I can do in it this year, but as far as 2028, I'm just kind of taking it day by day." The 50 backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly have long been staples of world championships, but those sprints will make their Olympic debuts in L.A. Masse won a world championship in the 50 backstroke in 2022. She was first at the turn of the 100 in Tokyo in 2021 en route to an Olympic silver medal. The Canadian and American Regan Smith were tied for first at the half of last year's 100 in Paris, where Masse settled for fourth. She won bronze in the 200 backstroke, however, and became the first Canadian swimmer to earn a medal in three consecutive Olympic Games. The athlete able to combine the most power and the best technique wins the 50 metres, Masse said. "Because it happens so fast, there's no room for error," she explained. WATCH | Masse earns 50m backstroke bronze at short-course championships: Kylie Masse earns 20th career world championship medal with bronze in 50-metre backstroke 7 months ago 5th long-course worlds appearance After the longest post-Olympic break of her career, during which she took time to reflect, Masse eased back into the water in October. Now, she heads to her fifth long-course world championship, where she's already collected nine medals, including three gold." "I spent many days contemplating what I wanted to do and if I wanted to keep swimming or how much I wanted to keep swimming," Masse said. 'I kind of realized I still love swimming and I wanted to keep swimming, not to the same capacity as I was swimming before, but I still wanted to be in the water and be competitive. I had a good [Canadian] trials and I was pleasantly surprised and happy with that, and I'm really looking forward to getting to Singapore and just being able to represent Canada again." Masse is the veteran of Canada's 28-swimmer squad that boasts 18-year-old phenom Summer McIntosh, who is poised to make more history. The Toronto teen followed up her triple-gold, four-medal performance in Paris by setting three world records at June's trials in Victoria, in the 200 and 400 individual medleys, and the 400 freestyle. At age 29, Kylie Masse is only getting faster 10 days ago McIntosh, Ledecky square off Aug. 2 "It's been incredible to watch her grow and to have trained with her when she was 14, just kind of coming onto the scene," Masse said. "It's super-exciting for our whole team and for the country, and for the swimming world in general, to just have someone of that calibre continuing to push the boundaries of history." McIntosh will also race the 200 butterfly and 800 freestyle in Singapore, with a highly anticipated showdown with American star Katie Ledecky in the 800 free Aug. 2. McIntosh's potential participation in relays could add to another medal haul. Her ambitious program gets underway with Saturday's 400 freestyle heats followed by Sunday's final. Finlay Knox of Okotoks, Alta., is the reigning men's 200 individual medley world champion after claiming the title in 2024 in Doha, Qatar. WATCH | A look at McIntosh's long course championships medal history: Every medal won by Summer McIntosh at a world aquatics (long course) championship 8 days ago Prize money purse of $3.1M US Toronto's Joshua Liendo and Montreal's Ilya Kharun, who took Olympic silver and bronze, respectively, in the 100 butterfly, are contenders in that distance, plus the 50 fly, which is also now part of L.A.'s Games. Singapore offers a prize money purse of $3.1 million US for pool and open-water swimmers, plus a $30,000 bonus to swimmers who break world records. "Part of our strategic plan is that Swimming Canada aspires to be a top-six swimming nation," Swimming Canada high-performance director John Atkinson said. "I think the program has developed to the point where you have to say that we would target being the top four nations on the medal table." WATCH | Kharun outdoes own Canadian record in men's 50m butterfly: Ilya Kharun demolishes own 50m butterfly national record, clocks world's fastest time of year 1 month ago Oleksiak serving suspension Canada's team will be minus Penny Oleksiak, who won the women's 100 and 50 freestyle at trials. She withdrew from the world championship because of a "whereabouts" issue under anti-doping rules. The World Anti-Doping Code (WADA) defines a whereabouts failure as any combination of three missed tests or filing failures in a 12-month period, which the International Testing Agency stated Oleksiak did between October 2024 and June 2025. She's accepted a provisional suspension for what Swimming Canada called an "administrative mistake" in not keeping her whereabouts information up to date. Even with closer McIntosh and veteran Marie-Sophie Harvey, Oleksiak's absence makes Canada less deep in freestyle relay experience. "It's a loss. I feel for the athlete as a person having made the decision to withdraw before going over there, a hard decision for any athlete to take, but [she] did it in the interests of the team," Atkinson said. "Her voluntary withdrawal, putting the team first, is all very admirable. "Now the team also has to look ahead and say 'we're the athletes that are here' and it gives opportunities to other athletes on the team to say 'what can you all do, how can you step up and get us through the prelims and race in the finals?"'
