Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus has broken one of the greatest world records in swimming, mowing down the 400m freestyle mark of her great rival Katie Ledecky with an extraordinary performance at the Australian Swimming Championships in Adelaide on Sunday night.
Titmus, who went perilously close to the 200m world record earlier in the meet, touched the wall in 3:56.40s to beat the previous mark of 3:56.46, set by Ledecky during her era of invincibility at the Rio Olympic Games in 2016.
It was 0.23 seconds faster than the time she swam to beat Ledecky in their iconic rumble in the Tokyo pool last year. And to put things into even more perspective, the only person before this to ever break a Ledecky world record was Katie Ledecky.
“It’s nice now everyone can stop asking when I’m going to break a world record,” Titmus said. “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. It’s definitely showing in the pool.