Hackett Wins 1,500, First to Sweep World Swim Distance Titles
July 31 (Bloomberg) — Grant Hackett won the 1,500-meter freestyle gold medal to become the first person to sweep the middle- and long-distance titles at the World Swimming Championships.
Hackett, a 25-year-old Australian, won in 14 minutes, 42.58 seconds tonight at Montreal, the fourth-fastest in history, to add to the 400- and 800-meter freestyle titles he’d already secured at the championships.
As well as becoming the first swimmer to win all three distance titles at the one world championship, Hackett is the first to win the same event at four championships after 1,500 freestyle titles in 1998, 2001 and 2003. He also won the 1,500- meter gold medal at the last two Olympics.
“It’s been a long week and it’s a long race to finish on,'’ Hackett told Channel Nine. “The last few hundred I just wanted to get to the end.'’
Hackett, who swam a total of 6.2 kilometers (3.8 miles) over 10 races in Montreal, became the second man to win three individual freestyle titles at one world championship meet. Australia’s Ian Thorpe took the 200, 400 and 800 titles in 2001 at Fukuoka, Japan.
It was Hackett’s seventh individual world title, breaking the record he shared with Thorpe, who skipped the Montreal meet.
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