But a decision by USA coach Dave Marsh might have puzzled some swim fans when sending his fastest two sprinters to the blocks to began the relay. She finished first in her heat with a time of 58.84.
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When Ledecky saw the time, she let out an uncharacteristic scream and pumped her right fist.
The U.S. team rested Nathan Adrian and Caeleb Dressel, first and second in the national trials, with Jimmy Feigen, Ryan Held, Blake Pieroni and Anthony Ervin in the lineup for the preliminaries. The American team of Simone Manuel, Abbey Weitzeil, Dana Vollmer and Ledecky would swim an American record 3:31.89, more than a second behind the Aussie’s world-record time of 3:30.65.
Adam Peaty of Britain broke the world record for the second time in two days to win the men’s 100 breaststroke, and Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom broke her world record in the 100 butterfly to win.
“That’s something I’ve had the privilege to be a part of since 2004, and I’m hoping to have the opportunity again”, Phelps said.
Ledecky already has one medal to put in her trophy case, a silver medal she earned in the 4×100-metre freestyle relay on Saturday.
“Freestyle is not my best stroke so I tried to keep it as close as possible”, Kalisz said.
She’s just getting warmed up. “She’ll be this iconic figure by which all future distance and middle-distance swimmers will be measured”. “We just wanted to give the Australians a fight”.
Phelps and the Americans didn’t mind a bit. OK, she is over 6ft tall, but she wouldn’t have stood out on a tour of the Stanford campus.
She took the Olympic record, formerly held by the late Camille Muffat of France, in the morning preliminary session.
It took stunning world-record times Saturday night to keep Bay Area swimmers from leaving the Olympic Aquatics Stadium with a golden aura. “We got along so well, she’s one of the most down to Earth -but also extraordinary people-you’ll meet”.
Ledecky’s mark was the third world record of the night.
She’ll be looking for the first of an expected three individual gold medals, going in as a heavy favorite in the 400 freestyle. The feat has become known as “the Ledecky slam”.
“That’s the easiest it’s felt going under four minutes, so I think it bodes well for tonight”, Ledecky told reporters.
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“She’s a phenom”, she said. “It was so much fun to start that way”. “Maybe over the next few years but it’s hard to say because he’s the greatest of all time“, she said.
