Katie Ledecky won the 1500m freestyle by 77 seconds to extend a 15-year, 40-plus-meet win streak in the event to start the Fort Lauderdale Open on Wednesday.
Ledecky clocked 15 minutes, 25.62 seconds — the fifth-fastest time in history, giving her the top 13 times ever — at the same pool where she broke her 800m free world record a year ago.
Ledecky, 29, lapped every swimmer in her heat Wednesday, facing a field with nobody else older than 17. Her closest pursuer was 15-year-old Sydney Hardy, who touched in 16:42.76.
Ledecky has won two Olympic gold medals, six world titles and more than 40 consecutive finals in the 1500m free (long course) — 46 by my hand count of USA Swimming’s database — since her last defeat in the event at the July 2010 Potomac Valley Championships in her native Maryland.
Ledecky, then 13, was defeated by Kaitlin Pawlowicz, then 17.
“(Ledecky) was leading and her cap came off,” Pawlowicz said in 2016, according to Yahoo Sports.
In Wednesday’s men’s 1500m free, Harvard freshman William Mulgrew upset Bobby Finke, the world record holder who won the last two Olympic golds in the event.
Mulgrew clocked 15:05.30 to Finke’s 15:13.62. Finke’s world record from the Paris Olympics is 14:30.67.
The Fort Lauderdale Open, which runs through Saturday, is headlined by Ledecky, plus the world’s other top swimmers — Canadian Summer McIntosh and Frenchman Leon Marchand.
At this same pool last May, Ledecky broke her own world record in the 800m freestyle (8:04.12) and registered, at the time, the second-fastest 1500m free in history (15:24.51).
Then this past January, Ledecky swam 15:23.21, so she has recorded three of the five fastest times in history over the last year, all at in-season, non-championship meets.
Her 1500m free world record is 15:20.48 from May 2018.
“Last year, the Fort Lauderdale meet kind of launched me into this great year,” Ledecky told SwimSwam. “I feel like I’ve been able to hold onto that momentum, and that’s been great. It’s kind of fun to swim a 15:25 and not be surprised by it.”
Also in Fort Lauderdale in 2025, Gretchen Walsh broke her own world record in the 100m butterfly in both the morning preliminary heats and the evening finals.
Ledecky and Walsh are entered in those same events this week — the 800m free and 100m fly are both on Saturday.
Ledecky and McIntosh are both entered in the 400m free (Thursday) and 200m free (Friday), setting up possible head-to-head finals showdowns.
Marchand is entered in the four events he won at the Paris Olympics: 200m fly (Thursday), 400m individual medley (Friday), 200m breaststroke (Saturday) and 200m IM (Saturday).
Other individual Olympic gold medalists in the field include Kate Douglass, Simone Manuel and Caeleb Dressel, plus Hubert Kos of Hungary.
Swimmers are preparing for this summer’s major international meets — the Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine, California, for nations outside Europe and the European Championships in Paris, both in August.
The U.S. roster for Pan Pacs was determined last summer.
