Olympics
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The swimming program of the 2025 World Aquatics Championships concluded Sunday in Singapore, ending an unusual stretch of four straight years of swimming worlds, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruptions to the Olympic schedule in 2020 and 2021. We won’t see the world’s best swimmers all in the same pool again until the 2027 worlds in Budapest, Hungary, with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics to follow.
There were notable absences from these worlds, with some swimmers taking time off after last year’s Olympic grind. Team USA dealt with a stomach illness that forced some top swimmers to withdraw from their events and likely affected the performance of others. And with three years to go until the next Olympics, plenty can change. Still, there was a lot to take away from the week. Here’s the story of the 2025 world championships in photos, with an eye forward to the L.A. Games.
In the first of two showdowns between Summer McIntosh and Katie Ledecky, the 18-year-old Canadian won the 400-meter freestyle last Sunday on the meet’s first day, with Ledecky slipping to bronze behind China’s Li Bingjie. Ledecky has inched down the 400-meter ranks over the years, going from gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics to silver in Tokyo behind Australia’s Ariarne Titmus, to bronze in Paris behind Titmus and McIntosh. She’s also still one of the fastest at the distance, posting the ninth-best time ever at a meet just three months ago. As the Olympics near, she’ll have decisions to make on managing the load alongside her two stronger distances, the 800 and 1,500.
