Some athletes might’ve buckled under the pressure.
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Katie Ledecky destroyed her own world record in the 800-meter freestyle event Friday, earning her a fourth gold medal at this year’s Summer Olympics in Rio.
“You’re going to make me cry more”, Ledecky said, smiling through another tear or two.
Ledecky’s Rio medal total stands at five, with those four golds (200m, 400m and 800m freestyle, 4x200m freestyle relay) plus a silver in the 4x100m freestyle relay, where she swam the anchor leg. Meyer took the 200, 400 and 800 at Mexico City in 1968.
As of late, Meyer’s been messaging with Ledecky’s’ mother, Mary Gen.
Before the 800, the former swimming great sent along a video message that was forwarded to Katie.
“This whole day has been kind of insane because it’s all of these little last things that I’ve gotten to do, like my last warmup with the girls at the training pool”, DiRado said. “But joining Debbie in that history is incredible”.
The silver medalist came along more than 11 seconds later.
“I hit every one of my objectives right on the nose this week”, Ledecky said. However, she is likely to compete internationally and will focus on NCAA competitions at Stanford over the next four years as well. Then, after her coach moved to the West Coast, Ledecky hooked up with Bruce Gemmell and never missed a beat.
“I woke up with a sore throat this morning because I was screaming for Simone Manuel at the TV last night – she’s my roommate – and then seeing Maya Dirado win the 200 metres backstroke in what was her last race ever just got me so excited to race”. She took two seconds off her previous world record set earlier this year.
“The objective was 8:05 or better”, she said.
Ledecky pulled up to finish line at 8:04.79, 12 seconds and several body-lengths ahead of silver medalist Jazmin Carlin.
By the time Ledecky reached for the wall on her 16th lap Friday night, shattering her own world record by almost two seconds with a time of 8 minutes, 4.79 seconds, there wasn’t another swimmer close enough to appear in a photo of the finish.
Around 23 seconds after Ledecky touched the divider, the remainder of the eight finalists chugged to the end of the tiring race.
Ledecky was barely breathing hard. “I’m finally believing in myself and stick to the race plan”.
“I’d rather not say”, she answered with a smile, which is understandable. Even Ledecky took a turn behind the wheel, even though she still has just a learner’s permit.
She’s already got a job lined up in Atlanta after the Olympics and made it clear she would be retiring no matter the results. Oakland Catholic grad Leah Smith placed sixth, finishing in 8:20.95. Ledecky is not sure yet what she’ll study, but she’s looking forward to being just another college freshman. “I’m going to have a new environment, a new training group to work with and I think we’re all going to be excited to see what we can do”. “It’ll be tough leaving home, but I’m excited for the next chapter”.
“I feel very lucky to have gotten on the podium again”. Her family is also into professional sports, especially hockey.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet”, Schooling said. What she did here in Rio was nothing short of wonderful.
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