In many cases, Katie is short for Katherine, but in the case of the Olympic gold medalist, she was born Kathleen Genevieve Ledecky. The Maryland native took home the win Sunday in the Women’s 400-meter freestyle swim meet.
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Peaty’s fireworks were sandwiched between two more world records – by Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom in the women’s 100m butterfly and prolific American Katie Ledecky, who obliterated her own 400m freestyle mark by nearly two seconds. Glasnović, who finished fifth in the competition in Beijing eight years ago, won a gold medal in the event at the 2013 European Championships.
You know you’ve swum the race of your life when you’re celebrating seconds before the other competitors have even reached the finish line. She doesn’t just win, she gives those trailing behind her no chance.
Now 19 years old, Ledecky seems to be a far cry from her 17-year-old self, completely dominating the event and finishing nearly five seconds before the silver medalist, Britain’s Jazz Carlin. “I was just trying to set a [personal] best time, and for me that just happens to be a world record”. The third-fastest one came several hours earlier Sunday during the preliminary heat.
“Pure happiness”, Ledecky said when asked to describe her emotions after she saw the scoreboard and saw her time. She is calm, matter-of-fact and fixated on improving.
During the race, she didn’t think much about a world record. Their expected duel for the gold here in the 200 is one of the most anticipated races of the entire Olympics meet.
“I felt like I had a lot left at the end and I let it all out”, she said.
Here in Rio, Ledecky said, the USA swimmers tried to get the team spirit going early by deciding to ring a cowbell every time one of its swimmers leaves their gathering spot in the warm-up pool to go to the starting blocks to race.
“It was insane”, Phelps said of the raucous environment in the stadium during the race. “I really thought I could explode in the last 50 meters”.
The veteran wasn’t sure if he’s ever heard anything like it.
The crowd went into frenzy at the sight of two Brazilians in the final. The result was gold for the team, the 19th of Phelps’ career and his 23rd career medal overall.
Britain’s Adam Peaty was almost as dominant in the breaststroke, winning with a world record time of 57.13 that shattered the mark of 57.55 he set in the preliminaries. American Leah Smith took bronze in 4:01.92.
But the night belonged to Ledecky.
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How dominating was her performance? And I swam with my brother throughout that and always followed him to the pool and wanted to be in the same group as him in everything. “Then I waited a bit”.
