Missy Franklin’s signature ear-to-ear grin was gone, replaced by a shaky voice and eyes full of tears.
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If Ledecky wins her remaining events, she’ll become just the third USA woman, after Amy Van Dyken in 1996 and Franklin in 2012 to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
Franklin was on top of the world when she broke the world record at the London Olympics in 2 minutes, 4.06 seconds.
“Getting up tonight, I felt a little bit like David facing Goliath, but I felt like I didn’t have any stones in my pocket”, Franklin said, still crying. “I’ll talk to my coaches and see what happened”.
“One of the things I’ve been trying to do this whole year is not compare myself to where I was in 2012”, she said. “I’m going to keep fighting, and I’m going to come back stronger than ever”. Franklin, with a joie de vivre so buoyant water can seem as light as air under every powerful stroke, is not an illusion. The 21-year-old touched the wall with the third-slowest time of the semifinals (2:09.74), almost five seconds slower than her record time of 2:04.06 at the 2012 London Games.
And, of course, she can always turn to her family. There was the rough transition to the life of professional swimming, and the understanding of how exhausting sponsor and media obligations can be. Her grand medal total is one, gold from the relay, but she only got it because she swam in prelims.
Franklin finished last in her heat with only the 13th-fastest time among 16 swimmers. This year, she will compete in the 200-meter backstroke and the 200-meter freestyle and look to defend her title. Those are the things that are the next priority. I love watching her swim, absolutely love it.
“Right now, it sucks”, Franklin said, laughing. Now, he’s the oldest swimmer of any nationality to win an individual gold medal. “But they are just like the rest of us”. She’s such a wonderful person.
And she has plenty of reasons not to crumble, her faith being one of them. “It’s just small baby steps forward”.
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The Americans led off with Allison Schmitt, who also swam in Wednesday morning’s preliminary heat.
