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Team USA captured its third straight women’s 800-meter freestyle relay title at the 2015 FINA World Championships with a strong anchor leadoff from Missy Franklin and a smoking anchor from Katie Ledecky.
Ledecky started a half a body length behind Sweden’s Ida Marko-Varga, who split a 2:00.85 to Ledecky’s 1:55.64 dropping Sweden to fourth place, catapulting USA to first.
The USA foursome of Franklin (1:55.95), Leah Smith (1:56.86), Katie McLaughlin (1:56.92) and Ledecky (1:55.64) won the world title by three seconds with a 7:45.37.
While not quite so dominant as some of the previous U.S. iterations that had Team USA in world-record contention in the 7:42 range, it was more than enough to give Ledecky her fourth gold medal here at the 2015 Worlds.
That’s Ledecky’s eighth career world title now as she trails only Franklin and Libby Trickett in the all time gold medal chart as Franklin broke a tie with Libby Trickett with her 10th career world title as Trickett owns nine.
Watch Missy Interview in the Mix Zone
NOTE: Sarah Sjostrom lit up the leadoffs with a world-best time of 1:54.31. That would have beat Ledecky last night in the women’s 200-meter free finals and is the second-fastest time in textile ever. Swimming World reported that Sjostrom elected to scratch the 200 Free earlier this month
SJOSTROM Sarah 26.72 55.51 1:25.18 1:54.31 1:54.31
All Time World Titles
[table “” not found /]Franklin also continues to march up the career world championship medal chart. By the end of the week, Franklin should stand behind only Natalie Coughlin as the most decorated female swimmer in worlds history.
Most World Medals
[table “” not found /]Click Here to Watch Race Video
Italy’s Alice Mizzau (1:57.50), Erica Musso (1:58.66), Chiara Masini Luccetti (1:57.52) and Federica Pellegrini (1:54.73) were pulled into a silver by Pellegrini’s ridiculous anchor leg as Italy clocked a second-place 7:48.41.
China’s Qiu Yuhan (1:56.88), Guo Junjun (1:57.55), Zhang Yufei (1:58.73) and Shen Duo (1:55.94) collected bronze in 7:49.10.
Sweden finished fourth overall in 7:50.24
Great Britain (7:50.60), Australia (7:51.02), Japan (7:54.62) and France (7:55.98) also swam in the championship event.
SCHEDULED EVENTS
- Women’s 100 free semis
- Men’s 200 IM finals
- Women’s 200 breast semis
- Men’s 100 free finals
- Women’s 200 fly finals
- Men’s 200 breast semis
- Women’s 50 back finals
- Men’s 200 back semis
- Women’s 800 free relay finals
