Olympic Swim Heats: Ledecky Dominates 1500m, Marchand Advances in Two Events

In Nanterre, France, Katie Ledecky started her quest for her first gold medal of the Paris Olympics by dominating the women’s 1,500-meter freestyle preliminaries on Tuesday. She finished far ahead of her competitors in her heat, clocking in at 15 minutes, 47.43 seconds. Ledecky secured a prime lane for the final on Wednesday, with Italy’s Simona Quadarella as her top challenger after placing second in the heats at 15:51.19. France’s Anastasiia Kirpichnikova (15:52.46) and Germany’s Isabel Gose (15:53.27) were the only other swimmers to break the 16-minute mark.

Having already won a bronze in the 400 freestyle, Ledecky aims to claim her 12th Olympic medal, which would equal the record for the most by a female swimmer alongside Dara Torres, Jenny Thompson, and Natalie Coughlin. Ledecky holds the record for the most individual gold medals by a woman with six. Katie Grimes, the other American in the event, finished in 10th place (16:12.11) and did not advance. Grimes is set to compete in the marathon race next week as she seeks to podium in both pool swimming and open water events.

In the men’s events, Léon Marchand of France, who triumphed in the men’s 400 individual medley, continued his pursuit of more gold medals. Marchand qualified for the semifinals of the men’s 200 butterfly with the sixth-fastest time (1:55.26) and then secured the third-best time in the 200 breaststroke (2:09.55). Hungary’s Kristóf Milák and South Korea’s Cho Sung-jae set the pace in the 200 fly (1:53.92) and 200 breast (2:09.45) heats, respectively.

Meanwhile, the American Jack Alexy led the men’s 100 freestyle with a time of 47.57, followed by France’s Maxime Grousset (47.70) and Romania’s David Popovici (47.92), the gold medalist in the 200 free. The defending Olympic champion Britain topped the 4×200 freestyle relay heats at 7:05.11, with the U.S. securing the second spot for the evening final with a time of 7:05.57.