The remarkable Ledecky is the past, present and future rolled into one and already has five Olympic golds and 13 world records to her name, with the ability to add to that record. The Welsh swimmer has not always had it easy, losing her funding after London, but her affectionate nickname of “Pitbull” is well earned. Meanwhile, the stragglers in the field, one made up of the best female distance swimmers in the world, were crossing the middle of the pool.
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She was sure ready for Rio, though.
Ledecky rarely shows her emotions, maintaining the sort of even keel that works so well in the pool. The men’s 100-meter dash final Sunday in track and field will begin and end in the time she spent waiting.
Jazmin Carlin of Great Britain won the silver and Boglarka Kapas of Hungary won the bronze.
Meyer and Ledecky have bonded of their shared greatness.
Her face broke out into a wide smile, one that was hiding a well of tears.
Her father isn’t kidding: According to her profile in Vogue, Ledecky is in bed by 9:30 p.m. most nights, as she wakes before dawn to train for a few hours at the pool. “I don’t know why I’m crying”.
“I try not to think about the history of it much, but just to be mentioned in the same sentence as her is incredible”, she said.
“It’s what I had”, said Phelps, who has also won four golds at these Games and now has 27 Olympic medals.
The only previous woman to have won the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle at the same Games was American Debbie Meyer in 1968.
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”.
“She’s getting so much faster that she’s starting to beat my times in distance events, which is insane”, 12-time Olympic medalist Ryan Lochte said.
“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 today”, DiRado said. She came into Friday with the top dozen times ever. More than that, she came in and touched the wall nearly three seconds faster than the previous world record.
By the last laps, the only question was how low Ledecky could go.
At only 19 years old, world champion swimmer Katie Ledecky has been making waves in Olympic swimming – and not just at this year’s Summer Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She won by almost 12 seconds, leaving her top rivals half a pool behind.
Above them stepped Schooling, having finished in an Olympic-record 50.39 seconds, exactly three-quarters of a second before the trio of silvers.
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“I’ve hit all my goals this past week…” ‘They have been there through the tough times and it is nice that they can be here. Le Clos suggested they hold hands before they ascend the podium, and so they did, pride aside and smiles abundant.
