KAZAN, Russia — About 23 hours had passed between Katie Ledecky’s world-record-setting swim Monday morning in the women’s 1,500-meter freestyle preliminaries and her prelim heat Tuesday in the 200 freestyle. The events represent the north and south poles of her program at the FINA World Swimming Championships — the former a nearly mile-long endurance race of 30 laps, the longest event in international pool swimming, and the latter a breakneck sprint of just four laps.
Toggling between them requires a shift in both mentality and stroke, but at least Ledecky had the chance to sleep on it before showing up at Kazan Arena for Tuesday’s 200 free prelims. Later Tuesday night, she would have about 20 minutes to make the same shift.
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By finishing first in Tuesday morning’s 200 free qualifying, beating out 63 other swimmers, Ledecky — whose time of 1:55.82 was a little more than half a second off her personal best — earned herself a spot in the second of two semifinal heats Tuesday evening.
Every swimmer wants to be in the fastest heats, because the better the competition in the pool, the more it pushes you to go fast. But in the case of Ledecky on Tuesday night, the distinction is critical — because she will be swimming the 200 free semifinals just after finishing the finals of the grueling 1,500 free, with only about 20 minutes in between. By getting into the second semifinal, she bought herself a tiny amount of additional rest.
“I get two or three more minutes of extra rest today, I guess,” she said. “That’s nice.”
Racing in the sixth of eight heats Tuesday morning in the 200 free, Ledecky, an 18-year-old amateur from Bethesda, found herself next to Katinka Hosszu, the indefatigable Hungarian pro nicknamed the “Iron Lady” for her proclivity for entering a half-dozen or more individual events at major meets — and contending in them all.
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Both Ledecky and Hosszu were coming off world records the day before — Ledecky in the 1,500 freestyle, Hosszu in the 200 individual medley. But this was clearly Hosszu’s turf — she is a middle-distance specialist, while Ledecky, a distance freestyler by trade, had never swum anything as short as 200 meters on FINA’s biggest stage.
Ledecky, though, caught and passed Hosszu in the second lap and led the rest of the way, beating her by exactly half a second. American Missy Franklin qualified with the third-best time, a 1:56.42.
“I knew Katinka has been swimming phenomenally this week,” Ledecky said. “I knew she would have the same kind of adrenaline I have coming off [a world record] yesterday. I knew it would be a pretty good heat, and just wanted to get up and race it. It was my first 200 at a really major meet like this. So I was a little bit nervous, but not too nervous.”
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The 200 free — which Ledecky declined to race at the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona, despite having qualified for it — has become an increasingly important part of Ledecky’s program, in part because the 1,500 is not contested for women in the Olympics. As a freestyler, if Ledecky’s aim is to maximize her gold-medal potential at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and beyond, she has to swim shorter races.
Her swim Tuesday morning demonstrated what a significant factor she already is in the 200 free, a year ahead of Rio. Her time moved her up from sixth to fourth in this year’s world rankings, which are led by Femke Heemskerk of the Netherlands, at 1:54.68. Heemskerk, though, finished ninth in Tuesday morning’s qualifier, with a 1:58.10, putting herself in the first (and slower) semifinal heat.
If Ledecky can survive Tuesday evening’s brutal 1,500/200 double and get herself into the 200 free finals Wednesday night, she would give herself a legitimate shot at another gold medal — to go with the one she has already won in the 400, and the two she will almost certainly take in the 800 and 1,500.
And if that happens, with Rio beginning to come into view, it could represent Ledecky’s most significant achievement here this week, even more than the 1,500 world record.