Katie Ledecky breezed to her third gold medal of the world championships, backing off a bit on her most gruelling night of the meet. Ledecky captured the 1500m freestyle by more than half the length of the pool on Tuesday, and returned just 49 minutes later to post the fastest time in the semifinals of the 200 free.

Long or short, it doesn’t seem to matter to the American star.

“It’s hard the other 364 days of the year,” Ledecky said. “It’s putting the work in for practice, so when I get to this day of the meet, I can just do it. It’s routine. Just get up and know that I have the work in the bank to get up and swim those times.”

While Ledecky sucked all the drama out of her event – she was more than 19 seconds ahead of the runner-up – Lilly King’s performance marked another notch for the finger-wagging American in her rivalry with Russian star Yulia Efimova.

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King won gold at the Rio Olympics last summer after spurning Efimova and brazenly proclaiming she had no business being allowed to compete because of doping violations. Efimova nearly broke Ruta Meilutyte’s four-year-old record in the semi-finals, giving her the prime lane in the middle of the pool.

But King, racing right beside her, was the one who came through when it really counted. She got off to a blistering start and led all the way, touching in 1 minute, 4.13 seconds to shave 0.22 off the Lithuanian’s mark from the 2013 worlds in Barcelona. King defiantly pounded the water when she saw the time, then turned to congratulate the runner-up – American team-mate Katie Meili, who edged out the Russian for the silver. Efimova hung on the lane rope, all alone and managing a weak smile, as if she couldn’t believe the Indiana college student had beaten her again.

Ledecky covered the metric mile in 15:31.82 – more than six seconds off her world-record pace from the world championships in Kazan, Russia, two years ago. But she didn’t really have to push it, especially with another race to go in an event that will likely be the stiffest challenge of her bid for a record-tying six gold medals by a female swimmer at worlds.

“I couldn’t really get my kick going into it that much,” Ledecky said. “I just felt like I was in a good position, holding a good pace. I just kind of stayed steady there.”