COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. The 2024 Club Excellence Challenge Series, a multi-site national meet, kicked off yesterday evening with the 1500-meter freestyle. Distance-freestyle veterans Katie Ledecky (Bethesda, Md./Gator Swim Club) and Bobby Finke (Clearwater, Fla./Gator Swim Club) captured first-place finishes in season-best times. 
 
Women’s 1500m Freestyle – FINAL 
1 – Katie Ledecky (Bethesda, Md./Gator Swim Club), 15:38.25 
2 – Aurora Roghair (Iowa City, Iowa/Unattached), 16:19.79 
2 – Jillian Cox (Cedar Park, Texas/Longhorn Aquatics), 16:20.83 
 
Race Notes: 
• Ledecky’s swim took place at the Atlanta location, while Roghair competed in Irvine, and Cox competed in Austin. 
• This marks the 20th time that Ledecky has gone sub-15:39. Only one other swimmer in history (Denmark’s Lotte Friis, in 2013) has done so. 
• Roghair’s swim took nearly 19 seconds off her previous personal best.  
 
Men’s 1500m Freestyle – FINAL 
1 – Bobby Finke (Clearwater, Fla./Gator Swim Club), 14:58.08 
2 – Sasha Lyubavskiy,  
3 – Giovanni Linscheer (Richardson, Texas/University of Florida), 15:41.80 
 
Race Notes: 
• Finke and Linscheer’s races took place in Atlanta, while Lyubavskiy swam at the Austin meet. 
• Finke’s time is his first under the 15-minute mark this season and is 7.88 seconds faster than his time at April’s TYR Pro Swim Series San Antonio. 
 
The competition, offering prize money to the aggregate winners across all three meet locations, continues through Saturday. Keep up with all the latest USA Swimming news by following @usaswimming on Facebook, X, and Instagram.