Swimming phenom Katie Ledecky won her 16th gold medal at the world championships on Saturday, breaking the record set by superstar Michael Phelps.
Ledecky, 26, accomplished the feat during a dominant performance at the 2023 World Aquatic Championships in Fukuoka, Japan. She earned her 16th title after winning the 800-meter freestyle with a time of 8:08.87, beating the second-place finisher, China's Li Bingjie, by more than four full seconds.
By winning the event, Ledecky shattered the record set by Phelps, which she had tied just days earlier by winning the 1,500-meter freestyle. She wasn't done setting new milestones, though, as her 800-meter win also made her the first swimmer in history to win six world titles in the same event, according to USA Swimming.
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After her record-setting milestone, Ledecky told reporters she was "happy with that swim. I wanted it to be a little better, but I'll take it. I'm really pleased." She added, "I really didn't even know I was going to achieve that until people started telling me. It's cool." Ledecky later told USA Today that she tends "to focus on one race, one practice, and one season at a time and never really 'aim' for medal-count records. It is just the product of hard work."
While she remains behind Phelps in terms of Olympic gold medals, she'll have a chance to add to that total next year during the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. A lock for the U.S. team, Ledecky has won seven gold medals and three silver medals in her three prior Olympics. She needs three more gold medals to reach second place among all Olympic athletes behind Phelps, according to Yahoo! Sports, and three more total medals would put her "in first place among all female Olympic swimmers and second among all Olympic swimmers."
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