“Race of the century” is a semi-overused phrase that gets tossed around for every big impending matchup between big names in any sport. Swimming allegedly already had its “race of the century” in 2004 when Ian Thorpe and Pieter van den Hoogenband squared off for their 200m freestyle rematch at the Athens Olympics alongside the challenger in 19-year-old Michael Phelps.

That race was dubbed the “race of the century” due to Thorpe, widely considered the best swimmer in the world from 1999 - 2002, trying to take back his 200m free Olympic gold that he lost to van den Hoogenband four years prior in 2000 at a home Sydney Olympics. Add in the 19-year-old Phelps who entered the fray to try to challenge Thorpe for the mantle of “world’s best swimmer” and it was the can’t miss race of that meet.

Ultimately, Thorpe won that gold medal over van den Hoogenband with Phelps taking the bronze.

Flash forward nearly 20 years later and swimming has its biggest race in quite some time. American Katie Ledecky, widely regarded as the best women’s swimmer of all-time, will be racing against the woman that beat her over eight laps of the pool at the Tokyo Olympics in Ariarne Titmus of Australia for the first time in two years. Since Tokyo, Titmus broke Ledecky’s world record which had stood for six years, and since then, Titmus’s world record was lowered by the 16-year-old Canadian Summer McIntosh.

To understand the weight of this race, one must know the players involved.

Katie Ledecky

It was in 2012 at the London Olympics when a 15-year-old unheralded American shocked the world to take down the almighty Rebecca Adlington in the 800m freestyle in front of members of the Royal Family, securing a monumental upset. Ledecky then went on a run that can only be described as legendary.

From 2013-2018, she set 14 world records across the 400m, 800m, and 1500m freestyle events. She won five medals at the Rio 2016 Olympics, and 15 medals at the three World Championships in that span. In any freestyle race longer than 200 meters, she was considered unbeatable, and any challenge to that notion was borderline laughable. Her lifetime bests were miles in front of the next best in history, and she redefined what many thought was possible in the sport of swimming.

In the 400m freestyle, she brought the world record from 3:59.15 to 3:56.46. In the 800m, she brought it from 8:14.10 to 8:04.79, and in the 1500m, she took it from 15:42.54 to 15:20.48. The rest of the world struggled to keep up and it seemed that the thought of beating her was impossible.

Swimming had its dominant stars, but Ledecky was one of a kind. 

Ariarne Titmus | Aussie Enters the Chat

It was in 2018 at the Pan Pacific Championships when Ledecky received her biggest challenge in the 400m freestyle from a 17-year-old named Ariarne Titmus from Australia. It was in Tokyo, Japan in the host Olympic city when the Tasmania native tailed Ledecky for 400 meters to become the third woman to break 4:00. Ledecky won the gold that summer at 3:58.50 while Titmus won silver at 3:59.66.

Even though she did not win, those following the meet knew Titmus was becoming something special, and the two were on a collision course leading to the 2020 Olympics.

A year later at the 18th World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, Titmus had steadily improved and her best time was inching closer to Ledecky’s - swimming a 3:59.35 six weeks before the Worlds final. A great race was expected, but Ledecky was still the heavy favourite; this was Katie Ledecky we were talking about, and it was predicted by many that Titmus’s big break was still likely a year away at the Olympics.

However on night one of the swimming program, Titmus stunned the world and slayed the dragon, winning gold in 3:58.76 with Ledecky winning silver at 3:59.97.

Two days later, however, Ledecky was forced to scratch out of her 1500m final and 200m heat because of illness, which had affected her preparation for the championships. A cloud of unfair judgment had been cast around Titmus, with some believing she only beat the American because she was ill, but her winning time was the fastest in the world that year. She beat Ledecky fair and square.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed the Tokyo Olympics to the 2021 calendar year and the anticipation around the women’s 400m freestyle did not dissipate. Titmus, now 20, had taken aim at Ledecky’s world record, getting down to 3:56.90 at the Olympic Trials and was no longer a challenger - she was a favourite, and Ledecky wasn’t going to go down without a fight. It was one of the most highly anticipated events at the entire Olympic Games, and it lived up to the billing.

Titmus backed up her 2019 gold medal with the ultimate prize of them all - the Olympic gold medal, swimming her fastest time ever at 3:56.69 with Ledecky in second at 3:57.36, her fastest time in five years to that point. Those watching around the world knew the significance of the event, and Titmus became a superstar.

Ledecky was still Ledecky and her 3:57 in Tokyo was an indication that she wasn’t going away any time soon. The Tokyo race was also an indication that Titmus was now on her level, and swimming fans around the world knew this was not the last time these two would meet.

In 2022, Titmus cleared the final hurdle - at the Australian National Championships in May, the 21-year-old had her greatest swim yet to break Ledecky’s world record at 3:56.40, wiping 0.06 off of Ledecky’s mark from the 2016 Olympics.

After chasing the target on Ledecky’s back for as long as she did, Titmus had it all - a World title, an Olympic gold medal, and the World Record.

Summer McIntosh | Canadian Phenom Makes It Three

Upon rewatching the epic battle at the Tokyo Olympics, one will notice a 14-year-old Canadian lurking in the shadows, staying on Titmus’s feet for about 250 meters. That was Summer McIntosh, who burst onto the scene that year to finish fourth in Tokyo at 4:02.42 in a new national record.

Many watching took note of McIntosh’s age - even Titmus and Ledecky were not making major finals at 14. The immediate attention was on the gold and silver medalists, but with McIntosh’s swims in Tokyo, was swimming crafting its next superstar?

As a 15-year-old in 2022, McIntosh really made her mark, winning World titles in the 200m butterfly and 400m IM at the World Championships in Budapest, the global capital of aquatics. And in the 400m freestyle, McIntosh tailed Ledecky for the entire race and stayed on her feet, winning the silver at 3:59.39 to become the fourth woman to break 4:00 in the event behind Ledecky at 3:58.15.

Titmus was not at the World Aquatics Championships to instead prepare for the Commonwealth Games afew weeks later.

It was there that McIntosh lined up alongside the Olympic champion Titmus to deploy an identical race plan to the one in Budapest with Ledecky - stay on her feet. Titmus won that matchup with McIntosh with a 3:58.06 to McIntosh’s 3:59.32, a nearly identical margin to the World Championships between the Canadian and Ledecky.

With McIntosh staying on both of them during their swims, an impending matchup at the Paris Olympics between the three was imminent: the rising teenage star taking aim at the proven legends. It was drawing similarities to the Thorpe-van den Hoogenband-Phelps matchup from 2004.

But why wait until 2024? Earlier this year, McIntosh really staked her claim as a current superstar when she broke Titmus’s world record at the Canadian Swimming Trials with a 3:56.08. No longer is she a rising star, she has risen, and she is the gold medal favourite in one of the most anticipated races at the World Aquatics Championships this year in Fukuoka.

The Race

It is not often that the three fastest swimmers in history in the same event are at the top of their game at the same time. It is not often that neither of the last two Olympic champions are the gold medal favourite for a race.

The women’s 400m freestyle final on Sunday will be one of the fastest fields ever assembled. Out of the 40 times that women have swum under 4:00 in the 400m freestyle, Ledecky, Titmus, and McIntosh have accounted for 39 of them, the one other being Federica Pellegrini from 2009.

That’s domination.

The women’s 400m freestyle this year at the World Aquatics Championships will certainly be of international intrigue to not only fans of aquatic sports, but fans of sport, and the three women at the forefront are not naive to that fact.

“I feel it’s quite even,” Titmus said to the media at the Australian team’s training camp in Saga. “I mean, I'd love to be a fan of swimming right now, watching the 400m freestyle is going to be unbelievable.

“There's going to be three women who hopefully repost the world record,” Titmus continued. “I feel just very blessed to be a part of that. Whether I am the hunter or hunted, I'm just going to go in there to give it a red-hot crack.”

“I am looking forward to the race,” Ledecky said in a press conference from the American team’s training camp in Singapore. “There are a lot of great competitors in that race. Summer and Ariarne have swum incredibly fast the last few years and I know they will be right there, and I know there are a lot of other contenders as well. It’s going to be a really fun World Championships overall with my events.”

“It is really exciting and it is great for the swimming world,” McIntosh said in a press conference from the Canadian team’s training camp in Nagoya. “I am really excited, not just for the 400m free but all my other races as well. I’m taking it day by day and race by race is what I try to focus on. It is going to be really fun and another really good experience.”

The excitement for the event is building each day as we get closer to July 23. Titmus is predicting a world record, but McIntosh is not so much focused on the outcome.

“I am not good at guessing things like that,” McIntosh said of what the gold medal-winning time may be. “I try not to focus on that at all. It’s more taking it day by day and session by session and mentally getting pumped and ready along with all my teammates so it should be really fun.”

The expectations around McIntosh are growing as in addition to her world record in the 400m freestyle this year, she also set the world record in the 400m IM. She is entered in four individual events at this year’s World Championships with the 200m and 400m freestyle, plus the two events where she is defending champion in the 400m IM and the 200m butterfly.

Her rivals have taken notice and know it’s going to be a tough gold medal to win.

“It was a great swim. I was really impressed with it,” Ledecky said of McIntosh’s 400m freestyle world record. “I think you could kind of see how she was progressing throughout the year, just given that she is in the US and going to all the same meets I’m going to basically. You just see it up close in all of her strokes she is improving. I was not surprised at all by the 400 IM record, I think you could see that coming day after day at the meets that she was at. That 400 free was a great swim and put together very well.”

Ledecky and McIntosh have raced each other twice in the 400m freestyle since last year’s World Championships as both of them train in Florida in the United States. McIntosh got the upper hand in Toronto at the World Cup in November in short course meters, while Ledecky out-touched her in long course at the US Open in Greensboro last December.

“I think it’ll be a great race and I remember racing Summer for the first time in Japan when she was 14 and she has gotten better and better every year, and has grown a lot as a swimmer,” Ledecky said. “As a fan of the sport, I am excited to see what she can do in all her other events as well.”

It’s possible that more could join the sub-4:00 club. New Zealand’s Erika Fairweather is fourth in the world this year at 4:00.62, while China’s Li Bingjie, who is the world record holder in short course meters and the Olympic bronze medalist, comes in with a season-best at 4:01.08. Add in short course World champion Lani Pallister of Australia (4:02.43) and it may be the best race of the entire meet.

“I think there is a respect between not just the three of us, but all the competitors on deck at the World Championships,” McIntosh said. “We all know what it takes to become one of the best in the world and make teams like that. Going into this race I am really excited to see what happens. All I can control is what I do with myself from now until then.”

“We will see where that race will go,” Ledecky said. “I think the next thing you will probably see is more and more people getting under 4:00. I hope that is the case, I think that will be the case. I think there’s a good chance that might happen next week so at some point you may go under 4:00 and not medal. That is really exciting for me to see how far that event has come. I won it in 13 at 3:59.8 and surprised myself in getting under 4:00 for the first time, and I think every year since I have gotten under and I have enjoyed that race.”

The expectations for the race are high, but the pressure doesn’t appear to be getting to any of the three favourites.

“I wouldn’t call other people’s excitement ‘weight,’” McIntosh said. “I think that’s more of a fun thing to look at it, and personally I am also really excited so that is all I try to really focus on. Any outside noise is not really relevant to me.”

“I feel like I've done things in training I've never done before, which is a nice feeling to have,” Titmus said. “I feel like I'm going into Worlds with a lot of confidence.

“Racing at (Worlds) and a pressure meet is a great practice for next year. I feel like I haven't really had racing at this level since the Olympics … I haven’t raced Katie in a long time so I'm looking forward to the challenge ahead.”

“I get pretty excited to race and I always get excited to get the meet started so the 400 free is usually my first race,” Ledecky said. “As you get closer to the meet, that’s the one you turn your focus to and I am excited about all my races though.

“I was really happy with how I felt at Nationals and how I’ve been doing all year. I’ve had some really great 400 frees at these meets over the years.”