Katie Ledecky decimated her own world record for the women’s 800-meter freestyle at the Rio Olympics on Friday, touching the final wall with no other competitors in sight.
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There were the traditional rookie skits, the late-night card games, the video clip on Manuel’s Twitter account of Ledecky doing “The Whip” (if she also did “The Nae-Nae”, it was unfortunately not included). That’d be almost 15 seconds faster than Rebecca Adlington’s record that stood when Ledecky made her Olympic debut in London.
I know that last one for a fact. They all touched in 51.14 – a half-body length behind Schooling’s winning time of 50.39.
Connor Jaeger of the US took the silver, and Italy’s Gabriele Detti won bronze after overhauling Jordan Wilimovsky of the U.S.in the closing stages.
The Brit was up against the greatest female swimmer of all time in Katie Ledecky.
“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.
The teenager from suburban Washington has one more race to go, and it might be the biggest lock of all.
A year ago, at the world championships in Kazan, Russia, the vaunted US team – minus Phelps, who was suspended by USA Swimming following a second DUI arrest – won just eight gold medals, its fewest since 1994.
The gold was Denmark’s third in swimming, and the first since 1948. In the 200 meter backstroke, Ryan Murphy would bring home the gold with a time of 1:53:62.
UVa athletes have won 25 overall Olympic medals across all sports, including 15 gold, 4 silver and 6 bronze medals.
Britain’s Fran Halsall will have a medal chance on Saturday, when the indoor swimming programme comes to a close, in the women’s 50m freestyle. On Thursday night, he saved his best for the final 100 meters and put on a show in Rio.
In a changing of the guard that left him totally at peace, Phelps was beaten Friday by a 21-year-old who grew up idolizing the most decorated athlete in Olympic history. With a remarkable dead heat taking place, both competitors would receive gold medals.
Ledecky’s parents believe Meyer inspired Ledecky to add the 200 free to her program, a challenging race for, at that point, a mostly distance swimmer.
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In addition to Phelps and Ledecky, the biggest USA stars were Stanford’s Maya DiRado, who turned in the ultimate one-and-done with two golds and four medals overall; Murphy, who extended US men’s dominance of the backstroke; Manuel; King, who backed up her brash diatribe against doping; and Anthony Ervin, the oldest member of the team at 35 and a gold medalist again in the 50 free – 16 years after he first won the event in Sydney. She’ll also get a gold after swimming in the afternoon preliminaries, though her time wasn’t good enough to land her a spot in the evening final.
