BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Katie Ledecky breezed to her third gold medal of the world championships, backing off a bit on her most grueling night of the meet.

It was left to Lilly King, Kylie Masse and Adam Peaty to take down the swimming record book.

Ledecky captured the 1,500-meter 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, barely breathing hard. "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 — King's performance marked another notch for the finger-wagging American in her rivalry with Russian star Yulia Efimova.

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 4-year-old record in the semifinals, 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 teammate 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 6 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."

She had to expend more effort in the 200 free, putting up a time of 1:54.69 that put her ahead of such stalwarts as Australia's Emma McKeon, Italian world-record holder Federica Pellegrini and home-country favorite Katinka Hosszu.

Peaty, Britain's breaststroke lion with the tattoo to match, broke a pair of 50-meter breaststroke marks — one in the morning preliminaries, another in the evening semifinals.

Peaty's prelims time of 26.10 shaved 0.32 seconds off the standard he set at the 2015 worlds in Kazan. He went even faster during the semis of the non-Olympic event, touching in 25.95.

When Peaty saw the time, he mouthed in disbelief, "No way." He'll try to go even faster in Wednesday's final.

Masse took down another record from the rubber-suit era. She won the women's 100 backstroke in 51.10 — 0.02 better than the mark set by Britain's Gemma Spofforth's at the 2009 worlds in Rome, the last hurrah for the performance-enhancing suits that allowed swimmers to essentially rewrite the record book.

In all, five world records have been set in Budapest.

It was a big night for the Chinese team, as well.

Sun Yang captured his second gold of the championships, adding the 200 free gold to his victory in the 400 free. Xu Jiayu touched first in the 100 backstroke, beating out Americans Matt Grevers and Ryan Murphy, who settled for silver and bronze.

___

Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963 . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/paul%20newberry

___

For more AP swimming coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/Swimming