“I hit all my goals right on the nose this week, and I couldn’t be happier with how this week has gone”, said Katie.
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In swimming, 11 seconds is a long time.
With the win and defence of her Olympic title, Ledecky’s unbeaten streak moved to a flawless 15 for 15 in individual events at major worldwide meets.
Ledecky could also continue to develop her 100m freestyle. She was about 11 1/2 seconds faster than runner-up Jazz Karlin of Britain. It was Nadal’s second Olympic gold, following his singles win in the 2008 Olympics.
She is her own breed of dominance, smooth and sleek and lethal, particularly in distance events.
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen her in tears”, added Ledecky’s superstar teammate.
“She’s an incredible athlete and she is going so fast, it leaves the rest of us having to scrape for the rest of the medals”, Carlin said.
While Phelps’ defeat would normally have guaranteed all the headlines, it is a sign of the passing of the baton in United States – and indeed Olympic – swimming that Ledecky rightly claimed centre stage. “Her stroke, her mentality: She’s so strong in the water”. There have been times where I haven’t believed in myself. “She is getting so fast now that she’s starting to beat my times, which is insane”. And I think in the future we’re going to look back, and the sport’s history will be divided into pre-Katie and post-Katie.
Ledecky did not have the best night’s sleep.
The same double had racked his 31-year-old body at U.S. Olympic Trials. At age 19, she’s both the youngest member of the USA swim team and its most sure-thing victor.
She seemed to thrive on it.
Behold the stories of her legendary training regimen: 5am and 3pm practices in the pool at Georgetown Prep with dryland training in between. It’s that singular determination that stands out. Meyer took the 200, 400 and 800 at the 1968 Mexico Games, and Ledecky matched that performance with a couple of world records as well.
Katie Ledecky swam her way to a gold medal – and a world record – in the 400 meter freestyle in London, 2012.
Ledecky – the U.S. Olympic swimming team’s youngest member – completed the feat “with a flourish”, the Times said, “breaking her world record in the 800 with a clocking of 8 minutes 04.79 seconds”.
Ledecky led from the start and inexorably stretched out the gap over her opponents to finish in eight minutes, 4.79 seconds, beating her previous mark, set earlier this year, by nearly two seconds.
“We each had American flags and they printed out each of the events, and the people that were competing in each of those events came forward, had a little moment together, took the flag and stuck it through the paper and into the grass in the Olympic village”, she said. “It felt good the whole way through”, she said.
Ledecky’s time of 8:04.79, which shaved almost two seconds off her previous world record of 8:06.68, marked the fifth time she’s broken the all-time mark at the distance where she now holds the 13 fastest times in history.
But no one was more dominant than the 19-year-old Ledecky, whose four golds included two world record-shattering performances.
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“I hope 20 years from now somebody else is doing something close and somebody’s picking up the phone and calling me”, he said. “It’s been so much fun the last four years”.
