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Swimming: Ledecky wins 800m freestyle gold

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Katie Ledecky of the U.S. swims in the women's 800m freestyle heats during the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre August 2, 2012. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne

Katie Ledecky of the U.S. swims in the women's 800m freestyle heats during the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre August 2, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Tim Wimborne

LONDON | Fri Aug 3, 2012 3:14pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - American teenager Katie Ledecky pulled off a stunning upset in the women's 800 meters freestyle final on Friday, ruining Rebecca Adlington's hopes of providing Britain with their first gold medal in swimming at the London Olympics.

The 15-year-old Ledecky, the youngest member of the American team, gave her rivals no chance as she led all the way to snatch the gold medal in a time of eight minutes 14.63 seconds, missing the world record in the longest event for women in the pool by half a second.

Spain's Mireia Belmonte Garcia took the silver, her second of the Games after she finished runner-up in the 200 butterfly two days ago, but was more than four seconds behind Ledecky, who slashed more than five seconds off her personal best.

Adlington held on to win the bronze despite fading over the last 150 meters after she had tried to take the field up to Ledecky, who set off at a cracking tempo and was under world record pace for all but the last lap.

Adlington ended Britain's long drought in swimming champions by winning two gold medals in Beijing four years ago but finished third in both the 400 and 800 this time.

(Reporting by Julian Linden; Editing by Greg Stutchbury)
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Comments (1)
Hypocrite2449 wrote:
How can a teenager swim that well in her Olympic debut and beat a previous champion?!?! The one thing I will say is that history in our sport will tell you that every time we see something, and I will put quotation marks around this, ‘unbelievable’, history shows us that it turns out later on there was doping involved. Any time someone has looked like superwoman in the history of our sport they have later been found guilty of doping. I have heard commentators saying ‘well she is 15, and at that age amazing things happen’. Well yes, but not that amazing, I am sorry.

Aug 03, 2012 4:32pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
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