Jessica Ashwood of Australia broke her own 1500m freestyle national record during finals at the 2015 World Championships where she ended up fifth overall.
Ashwood was in fourth at the 400-meter mark turning in 4:11.93. She stayed in fourth through 800-meters where she split an 8:25.00. At the 1100m wall she faded to fifth where she stayed for the remainder of the race.
Ashwood put up a time of 15:52.17 to take over four seconds off the record she set earlier this season.
Towards the end of June, Ashwood first broke the longstanding record of 16:01.53 set by Melissa Gorman in 2010. In doing so she became the first Australian woman under 16-minutes in the race with a time of 15:56.86.
Ashwood is currently having the meet of her life in Kazan. Earlier in the competition, she took home the bronze medal in the 400m freestyle final and set a new Australian and Oceanic record.
With her newfound 1500 freestyle record, she’s broken two and has the potential to take down one more. Ashwood will be swimming the 800m freestyle later in the meet, and is currently seeded fourth overall heading into prelims.
Ashwood is the Australian record holder in that 800m freestyle with the 8:19.76 she swam last year. If she can better that, she’ll be in great shape to snag her third Aussie record in as many events.
I spent zillions of hours at the Canterbury pool like Jess . I liked to do back one way so I could watch the trainswhich were exactly the perfect eyeliner away .
I spent whole weekends & holidays alternating between swimming & putting on my speed skates for some laps at the rink next door & then back to the pool for years . This is how I developed my mindset , so admired by SwSw posters .
Nice to see Jess finally showing the benefits of those 10x400s at 10 .