In those precious moments, Ledecky, 19, could ponder the enormousness of this accomplishment and the journey that brought her here – a notion that would leave her in tears minutes later.
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Four years ago, Katie Ledecky stunned the world with her breakout performance in the women’s 800m freestyle at the London Games. Ledecky has not turned professional and plans to swim at least one NCAA season. While her rivals splash around, Ledecky twists through the water as if she’s being pulled by some hidden line.
“I try not to think too much about the history of anything”, Ledecky said Thursday.
Ledecky sliced 1.89 seconds off her own record in the longest event of the women’s swimming programme. They kept them a secret until this week.
Also, Michael Phelps looks to add to his gold medal haul in the men’s 100 meter butterfly finals 24 hours after winning the 200 individual medley final for his fourth gold of 2016.
Ledecky, true to herself, balked at the idea that she could fill the shoes of Phelps.
Schooling’s win was Singapore’s first gold of the Rio Olympics. She earned a gold medal as part of the 4×200 freestyle relay after swimming in the preliminaries but the games have been disappointing for her.
“It felt faster than any event I had ever done before”, Ledecky said, “so I was pretty confident that I would be under that world record time”. “I’m excited for the next chapter and what that can hold”.
What makes Ledecky so good? “I’m going to Rio, she’s going home”. Earlier in the games, she became the first American to compete while wearing a hajib. There can be new opportunities.
NCAA swimming will come first.
The surprises continued in the men’s 50-meter freestyle.
The men’s long jump finals will begin at 8:53 p.m. Rutherford, American Jarrion Lawson and Australia’s Fabrice Lapierre are the ones to watch. She switched to skeet shooting when double-trap was dropped from the Olympics.
There are other possibilities beyond the freestyle. She didn’t get to bed until after 3 a.m. that morning after anchoring the USA women to victory in the 4×200 free relay on Wednesday. “She can be a heck of a 400m IMer, 200m flyer. I’m very proud of this team”.
Last summer, Outside magazine described her as “the best athlete in the world right now”. “I wrote my parents an email this morning just saying thank you and I started bawling on my bed and then my roommates came in and comforted me”.
The Washington Post’s Dave Sheinin writes that Ledecky is creating a new definition of peak performance in the 800-meter event, “much as Barry Bonds in his prime shattered the statistical norms that governed baseball”.
“I’ve really enjoyed being an amateur”, Ledecky said. “They won’t all be on the swim team”. I’ve never seen a female swimmer like that. Coaches are creative. Greg will figure it out.
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In the blink of an eye, Ervin went from one end of the pool to the other in a furious dash, edging the defending Olympic champion, Florent Manaudou of France, by a mere hundredth of a second. “There’s a lot of truth to that”. Ledecky’s time was almost seven seconds faster than anyone else. Victor of three golds and five medals overall in London four years ago, she battled depression and didn’t qualify for an individual event in Rio. The victory comes 16 years after Ervin won his first individual gold medal. I’m just going to have some time away from the pool’.
