“I feel that I have very special people in my life and, because of that, I feel very fortunate”, she said.
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“I don’t think she would say anything like I did”, said Babashoff, who was called a poor sport after questioning the East Germans’ performances. An additional gold as the anchor leg of the 4×200 free relay, which the USA has won in four of the past five Olympics, would make her only the third American female, after Amy Van Dyken in 1996 and Missy Franklin in 2012, to win four golds in a single Olympics. And it sure won’t hurt TV ratings to have Ledecky in the mix on the first day of Olympic swimming Saturday, and Phelps (and Ledecky again in one of her specialities, the 400 freestyle) on the second day, Sunday.
The US gymnast will be returning to the Olympics at Rio after winning the gold medal as individual all-around champion in 2012, at the age of just 16. Now she’s added the 200m and 400m freestyle events to her arsenal, and everyone else is trying to catch up.
Well, now she does, but not so much when she was very young.
Ledecky finished seventh in the individual 100 freestyle at last month’s USA trials in Omaha, Nebraska while Phelps did not enter. Ledecky won 1 gold medal in her first Olympic appearance, and since then has, in the words of the Washington Post, has become “better than anyone is at anything” in the distance freestyles. “I’ve had a lot of fun competing for worldwide meets and gaining more experience”. Talking about his faith in relation to sport, he said: “I approach the practices and the competitions the same. But I still believe anything is possible, and I know if I drop down close to it, I would make that my goal”.
A lot of in that selfie!
“I don’t think about any of the historical implications or anything; that’s your job”, Ledecky told reporters earlier this summer. I know the campus is attractive and the campus just kind of sells itself when you get there. Greg Meehan, the head coach, is great. The team is great. It’s an astoundingly inspirational story – you should be screaming your lungs out for McFadden to sweep all seven of her events at the Rio Paralympics.
Anything other than clear Ledecky victories in the 400m and 800m frees would be a massive shock, but in the 200m she faces stiff competition from Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom – despite being a butterfly specialist – and Italy’s Federica Pellegrini. She ended 30 years of silence about the ordeal when publishing a memoir this year, “Making Waves: My Journey to Winning Olympic Gold and Defeating the East German Doping Program”.
There’s quite a bit more to Phelps’ prolonged run of dominance, according to Janet Evans, who herself is a four-time Olympic gold medalist who knows a thing or two about the huge pressure that comes with competing in the Games.
“We really are happy to see our rivals do well, especially on the women’s side”, Weir said. “It’s fun to walk around the village and see some of them”. “So we started working on speed and trying to get better at the 400 and 200 over that year, and I think as I started to drop time I kind of realized, ‘Yeah I can be a player in all those events on the worldwide stage.’ And each year, I’ve just tried to set myself up for this year”.
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No matter what happens in Rio, this is how he really wants to go out.
