It was special, indeed: With a time of 8:04.79, Ledecky obliterated her own Olympic record of 8:12.86 (set in a qualifying heat in Rio), and took her world record down by nearly two seconds.
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Jazmin Carlin of Great Britain won the silver and Boglarka Kapas of Hungary won the bronze.
United States’ Katie Ledecky celebrates after the women’s 800-meter freestyle final during the swimming competitions at the 2016 Summer Olympics, Friday, Aug. 12, 2016, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“Ledecky qualified for the final by setting an Olympic record of 8:12.86 in topping Thursday’s preliminary heats”.
Ledecky also became only the third American woman to win four gold medals in a single Olympics, following fellow swimmers Amy Van Dyken and Missy Franklin.
She already held the world records in the 400-, 800-, and 1,500-meter freestyle coming into the RIo Games and broke her own record in the 400m when she won gold on Sunday.
She also won two relay medals: A gold in the 4×200 freestyle, and a silver in the 4×100 freestyle. I’m going to walk away happy with what I’ve done here.
Some 23 seconds after Ledecky touched the wall, the last of the eight finalists finally got to the end of the grueling race. The impression one gets is that if Ledecky kicked harder, if she did what her competitors are doing, it would only disrupt her mystifying propulsion.
Watching Ledecky swim, let alone race, is mesmerizing. After the race, she talked to Channel 11’s Gordon Loesch. But as her sweep of individual events in Rio showed, that polish is now shining brilliantly. While her rivals splash around, Ledecky twists through the water as if she’s being pulled by some hidden line.
After putting off college for a year to focus on the Olympics, she’ll head to Stanford in the fall and join fellow USA teammates Simone Manuel and Leah Smith.
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She shared some tears with Gemmell, the coach who stepped in so seamlessly after the London Games and was so instrumental to her success. “The way she swims is very much the way I tried to swim”. At age 19, she’s both the youngest member of the US swim team and its most sure-thing victor.
