Despite going faster than they ever have, it was not almost enough in two big blowouts that lacked the high drama that often unfolds at the pool.
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United States’ Katie Ledecky competes in a heat of the women’s 400-meter freestyle during the swimming competitions at the 2016 Summer Olympics, Sunday, Aug. 7, 2016, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The runners-up finished in a time of 3:31.89 – a full second slower than the Aussies’ previous world mark.
When she found out after the race how close she was to breaking the world record, the young American was incredibly hard on herself.
Her personal record of 4:31.15 also was nowhere near Katinka Hosszu of Hungary.
China’s Xu Jiayu was second-quickest ahead of Australian world champion Mitch Larkin.
Now, Ledecky’s training partners are exclusively men, because they’re the only ones who can actually keep up with her during grueling practices, as The New York Times Magazine reported.
American star Katie Ledecky’s Olympics start with silver. Australia and defending Olympic champion France are also in the mix after qualifying third and fourth.
But something about the relay called to her. But she wanted desperately to swim in this relay and said she cried when she received the text message that she would be part of this team.
“I didn’t want to spin my wheels too much, so I just kind of backed off and kept it easy up front”, she said.
The results were not surprising.
Sun had hit back angrily at being branded a drugs cheat by Horton, and tensions over tainted swimmers competing at the Games continued to bubble.
Kylliainen, 23, is still at school in the USA but she represents Finland so has something of an outsider’s perspective.
On the blocks, Ledecky later admitted, she was nervous, shaking before her leg of the relay.
“We were in the elevator the other day and someone who didn’t recognize her said, “What do you swim?-she’s like ‘freestyle” and that’s it”.
“I would say I was very pleased, not surprised”, said Marsh. She still has four more events to complete this Olympics, and there’s a really, really good chance she’ll win gold in each one.
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But some might question the decision considering Amanda Weir and Stanford’s Lia Neal were faster at the trials a month ago.
