(Reuters) -World record holder Summer McIntosh stormed to the women’s 400 metres freestyle world title on Sunday, making a flying start to her bid for five individual crowns at the Singapore meet as American great Katie Ledecky finished with the bronze.
McIntosh’s anticipated battle with Ledecky fell flat as the Canadian led from start to finish and claimed the win in 3:56.26 seconds, nearly two seconds ahead of Chinese silver medallist Li Bingjie.
Ledecky was 2.23 seconds behind 18-year-old McIntosh, who exited the pool quickly to prepare for the 200 individual medley semi-finals.
Triple Olympic champion McIntosh has a chance to join Michael Phelps as the only swimmer to win five individual titles at a single world championships.
In the men’s 400 final, Lukas Maertens won an absolute humdinger of a race, nosing ahead of Sam Short in the final lap and holding off the Australian by 0.02 seconds to claim his first world title in a time of 3:42.35.
Short won the event two years ago by the same margin from Tunisia’s Ahmed Hafnaoui, with Maertens claiming bronze.
“I thought I’d have gone a bit faster, to be honest,” said Short, who swam 3:42.07 in the heats, and dedicated the silver to his aunt who recently died of cancer.
“I won two years ago by 0.02 (seconds) then I just lost by 0.02.”
American Gretchen Walsh, the silver medallist at the Paris Olympics, topped qualifying with Belgian Roos Vanotterdijk for the women’s 100 butterfly final, both recording a time of 56.07.
China’s former world champion Zhang Yufei was also safely through.
France’s Maxime Grousset was fastest into the men’s 50 butterfly (22.61) final ahead of Swiss Noe Ponti and Briton Benjamin Proud.
Olympic champions Australia and the United States will battle for the women’s 4×100 freestyle relay gold in the evening session, while a new-look U.S. team topped qualifying for the men’s 100 relay final.
Australia and China are also expected to battle for the gold in the men’s relay on Sunday.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
