Four world records fall; Ledecky makes history with 12th gold medal

Hungary: Britain’s Adam Peaty has broken a pair of 50-meter breaststroke world records on the same day at the world championships, and Canada’s Kylie Masse took down a mark from the rubber-suit era.
Later in the day, Lilly King of the US broke the world record for the women’s 100-meter breaststroke in winning the gold medal.
King clocked one minute 04.13 seconds in the final, beating Ruta Meilutyte’s 2013 record, with compatriot Katie Meili taking silver, 0.90sec back, and Russia’s Yuliya Efimova earning bronze at 0.92.
Also, American Katie Ledecky made history on Tuesday by becoming the first woman to win 12 world swimming championship gold medals with victory in the 1,500-meter freestyle.
Ledecky clocked 15 minutes, 31.82 seconds with Spain’s Mireia Belmonte taking silver at a huge 19.07secs back, while Italy’s Simona Quadarella earned bronze at 22.04.
The 20-year-old is now the most decorated woman in world swimming championships history as she passed compatriot Missy Franklin, who has 11 world titles.
But despite her achievement, Ledecky said winning is not as easy as she makes it look.
“It’s hard the other 364 days of the year, it’s about putting the work in during practice, so that then I can step up,” she said.
“I then know that I have the work in the bank and can post those good times.”
This was Ledecky’s third gold of these championships — from a possible six she could finish with — and she led from the start.
Peaty set the first mark Tuesday with a time of 26.10 seconds in the morning preliminaries, shaving 0.32 seconds off the standard he set at the 2015 worlds in Kazan, Russia. He went even faster during the evening semifinals of the non-Olympic event, touching in 25.95.
When Peaty saw the time, he mouthed in disbelief, “No way.”
Masse won the women’s 100 backstroke with a time of 51.10 — 0.02 better than the mark set by Britain’s Gemma Spofforth’s at the 2009 worlds in Rome, the last hurrah for rubberized suits that allowed swimmers to rewrite the record book.
In another final, Chinese superstar Sun Yang won the men’s 200-meter freestyle gold to add to his Olympic title in the same event

source:Arab News