2024 Paris Olympics

Gretchen Walsh sets a world record and Katie Ledecky secures her 4th trip to Olympics at U.S. trials

Walsh will compete in the finals for 100-meter butterfly on Sunday, where she will try to secure a spot on her first Olympic team.

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Gretchen Walsh shattered the world record in the women’s 100-meter butterfly semifinals on Saturday night, the opening night of the U.S. trials.

Gretchen Walsh set a world record in the women's 100-meter butterfly Saturday night, posting a time of 55.18 seconds in a semifinal heat at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials.

Walsh was more than a half-second under world-record pace at the turn and finished strong to eclipse the mark of 55.48 set by Sweden's Sarah Sjöström at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

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She held her hand over her mouth as she looked at the scoreboard in disbelief, a “WR” beside her name.

The 21-year-old Walsh, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, who competes for the University of Virginia, will return for the finals Sunday night looking to claim a spot on her first Olympic team.

Already making the Paris squad is Katie Ledecky, who secured her fourth trip to the Olympics in the women's 400-meter freestyle.

Cheered on by a crowd of 20,689 at the home of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts, Ledecky touched the wall in 3 minutes, 58.35 seconds.

Katie Ledecky made her fourth Olympic team after clinching a spot on Team USA in the women's 400m freestyle.

She improved on her time of 3:59.99 in the morning preliminaries and set herself up to make a run at another gold against a loaded field at the Paris Games. Australia's Ariarne Titmus is the defending Olympic champion and world-record holder (3:55.38), with Canadian phenom Summer McIntosh also in the mix.

The 27-year-old Ledecky is set to swim four events at the trials, all of them freestyle events ranging from 200 to 1,500 meters. She already has six individual gold medals — more than any female swimmer in Olympic history.

The expected second spot on the Olympic team will go to Paige Madden, the runner-up behind Ledecky at 4:02.08.

Watch Ledecky's gold medal performance in the 1500m in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics:

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