She burped and then fought off that uncomfortable feeling just at the moment she needed to fight off Sjostrom, who won the 100 butterfly in world-record time earlier this week.
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The 19-year-old Washington, D.C., native amazed in her worldwide debut four years ago at the 2012 London Games, winning gold in the 800-meter freestyle.
Ledecky won her gold medal in 400-meter freestyle in which she is beats her own record last 2013 World Championship “The goal I set after worlds in 2013 was 3:56 or better”, Ledecky said.
On Sunday, she covered the last 50m in a blazing 28.92sec, leaving Jazz Carlin of Great Britain to collect silver in 4:01.23 – 4.77 seconds adrift.
Before he was her Olympic teammate, swimming superstar Michael Phelps was one of Ledecky’s idols.
And the thing is, nothing she did was all that unusual for her.
Still, after swimming two races against world-class athletes, Phelps lingered at the pool’s edge and ran his fingers across his throat in a cutting motion tonight, seemingly saying, “I’m done”. Ledecky expects to swim Friday in the 800m final. She has executed similar marvels in the 400- and 800-meter. Five of the 10 top all-time performers in the distance were in Tuesday night’s eight-woman field.
“The 200 free is such a more stressful event for me than the 400 or the 800”, Ledecky said. Great Britain took second, and Japan won bronze.
No swimmer has ever been so good across such a range of distances.
She comes in as the second fastest qualifier behind Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom who also has won gold already in this Olympics in the 100-meter butterfly. She will swim in the finals of the event later on Sunday. Have you watched her performances in this week’s racing?
When it was done, Phelps simply sat on the starting block, thoroughly exhausted. And she loves representing her country.
Ledecky was only beginning to show the world that stuff like that does happen, at least when she’s in the pool.
Franklin just hopes she gets the chance to be part of the 4×200 free relay. She seemed to cruise through the first 200 meters of the qualifying race, taking a lead but lagging well behind her world-record pace. Svitolina, who had never before played in an Olympics, smiled and stuck her arms out in front of her, palms up, as if waking up from a dream.
The Americans lost their first match in the waning seconds to Argentina, 17-14, but came back later in the day to trounce Brazil, 26-0.
It turned out she and Gemmell had planned for her to set an easy pace in the first half of the race.
She was one of a number of Russians who argued successfully that excluding them from the Olympics would be punishing them again for the same offence. “Ledecky, she’s one of a kind so it feels like a gold to me that I’m after her”, – Sjostrom was delighted with her silver.
Ledecky completely dominated the Rio Olympics, setting a bar very high for the 400-meter freestyle with a very impressive time of 3:35.46.
But relays have always been important to his story. Ledecky hit the halfway mark six one-hundreths of a second back.
But for Phelps to pull it off, the Americans needed to win the 4×100 freestyle relay against ferocious competition from the French and the Australians. The prelims for the 800-meter freestyle are Thursday morning.
Phelps unleashed a wild bellow, clenching both fists in exultation. “She has a lot more in her career”. Another in the hunt for gold is Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh, who raced to 1:55.14 and is the 2015 world champion in this event.
The Americans have raced so far ahead of the competition in recent years it’s getting hard to remember when it wasn’t this way.
Four years ago, Phelps mistimed his finish in the swooping stroke he does better than anyone, gliding to the wall a little too long after his final stroke.
Phelps has not hidden his distress at this state of affairs.
Now, the 16-year-old – the youngest archer at Rio 2016 – is into the last 16 of the men’s individual events. But he gave hints he’d like to participate.
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For U.S. Swimming, one more medal came after the team’s stars scored individual golds.
