2025 Worlds Review - Race Of The Champs: KL 8:05, LP 8:05, SMc 8:07, SQ 8:12
It's a fortnight since we entered the last weekend of a World Championships looking forward to the most anticipated race of the week. The women's 800m freestyle exceeded expectations as the show-stopper of the meet. A great place to start our review of Singapore 2025
It was Katie Ledecky's magnificent seventh 800m freestyle World title since 2013; Lani Pallister's glorious arrival as a global title contender; Summer McIntosh's bronze lining in a golden run, fuel for the long haul; Simona Quadarella's qualifier for fastest fourth in history.
It was the greatest women's distance freestyle race ever. Yes, there have been other phenomenal three-way 16 and 30-length battles (Keena Rothammer, Shane Gould, Novella Caligaris, 1972; through to Ledecky, Lotte Friis, Lauren Boyle 2013, for example), but an 800m in which fourth took down the European record more that five seconds back from bronze behind two women on 8:05s? Never, of course.
