Katie Ledecky wins gold in 1,500m freestyle at World Aquatics Championships - ESPN

FUKUOKA, Japan, — Katie Ledecky eased to her 20th gold medal overall at the World Aquatics Championships, powering to a fifth women's 1,500-meter freestyle title after Matthew Richards led a British 1-2 in the men's 200-meter freestyle on Tuesday.

Ledecky, 26, a seven-time Olympic champion, went into the race as the firm favorite, going more than 13 seconds quicker than Italy's Simona Quadarella — the next best — in the heats and was under her world record time after a blistering start to the final.

But Ledecky's pace dropped slightly after she took a huge lead, and she touched the pad in 15 minutes, 26.27 seconds to finish 17.04 seconds faster than Quadarella, who settled for silver while China's Li Bingjie took bronze.

It was the perfect response for Ledecky, who was dethroned and left disappointed by the record-breaking Ariarne Titmus in Sunday's 400-meter freestyle event.

«I feel good,» Ledecky said. «It hurt a lot, but I'm really happy with the outcome. I'm just having a lot of fun this week.

»It's just a lot of hard work and really great people around me — my coaches since I started swimming since I was 6, and my really great teammates."

Earlier, Richards finished strongly to bag the gold ahead of compatriot Tom Dean in his freestyle event with a solid time of 1 minute, 44.30 seconds.

«I'm pretty tired to be honest. I'm over the moon, it was a hell of a race,» Richards said. «I knew going into the race it was one of the most stacked 200 freestyle fields for a long time. It was amazing to come away with a one-two for Britain.

»I could see all those boys well coming into the finish, really happy to get that done and hopefully the first of many."

Olympic champion Dean finished 0.02 seconds behind to take silver, and