Unwell Katie Ledecky Withdraws From World Swimming Championships

Katie Ledecky, 14-time World Champion, withdrew from the 200-meter freestyle preliminaries and the 1,500-meter final on Tuesday at the world swimming championships stating illness as the reason.

United States’ swimmer Katie's coach Greg Meehan said doctors are still looking into it but had no official diagnosis released yet. “She woke up this morning and she’s not feeling well at all,” he said. “I’m hopeful that we see her racing again this week.”

Katie is missing out on the eight-day meet that ends Sunday. “This is brutal for her not to be competing,” Meehan said.

She was the fastest qualifier for the 1,500 free final event in 15 minutes, 48.90 seconds, 2.68 seconds faster than the next quickest swimmer.

“If you get back into racing too early, it’s just going to make the road to recovery a little bit longer,” Meehan said. “We’re just in a kind of half-day by half-day (mode) and hoping that she turns the corner here quickly.”

Katie, 22, is very competitive when it comes down to winning medals. She is gold medalist in the women’s 400-meter freestyle in Rio 2016 and a smasher of her own 2012 London Olympics world mark. She won Olympic gold in the 200, 400 and 800 in Rio. She had won the gold at London when she was just 15 years of age.

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She had been feeling under the weather since arriving in South Korea last week.

Katie will most likely participate in individual event of 800 free, and the preliminary heats on Friday. If all goes well, she will be competing later in the week. She is scheduled to swim all four events at the 2020 Tokyo Games after the 1,500 was added to the Olympic programme.

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Feature Image Credit: Businessinsider.com

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