Swimming prodigies There has always been an element of Hollywood child star about Olympic swimming prodigies.
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Looking through the line-up, it’s hard to pick out one individual on the cusp of the kind of world fame enjoyed by Phelps, and especially Bolt, who was quick to flash his Hollywood smile and thunderbolt stance after winning each of his six golds.
Like Phelps, Ledecky’s birth year is perfectly timed for the quadrennial.
Without the sprint free relay, her first swim here would have been Sunday’s heats of the 400 freestyle, in which she is the heavy favorite. She finished 7th in the event at US trials and hadn’t done anything since to suggest she was a good fit for the sprint relay other than, you know, being the most dominant swimmer in the world. Imagine, for a moment, that Usain Bolt announced he was going to run the 1,500 meters in Rio.
“Once Olympians get on top a lot of them don’t know what to do afterward”, Meyer said.
After London, two separate reports were commissioned to examine the swim team’s failings at the 2012 Games-one by a consulting firm called Bluestone Edge for Swimming Australia, and one by the Australian Sports Commission.
After Rio, Ledecky will head to Stanford on a scholarship meaning that she will remain an amateur.
She has recently dominated USA women’s swimming, amassing world records over the 400m, 800m and the non-Olympic 1500m freestyles.
If she wins her three individual events and a relay, the 19-year-old Ledecky would take four gold medals back to her Maryland home, equaling the record for a USA female swimmer shared by Amy Van Dyken and Missy Franklin.
Rockville-based attorney Adam Van Grack on Thursday was named chairman of the Board of Directors of USA Canoe/Kayak, which manages and organizes the Olympic sports of canoe slalom and canoe sprint in the U.S. Van Grack has always been involved in the sport and has served as the president of the Potomac Whitewater Racing Center in Bethesda since 2009. (She has even been dabbling in the 100-meter swim.) In four years, at the next Olympics, Ledecky will be just 23 years old. She won the 200m, 400m, 800m (and 1500m, not an Olympic swim for women) in Kazan. The relay team lineups aren’t due until the night before each race, and USA Swimming has remained mum on any official announcement about Ledecky’s role. The world record holder in the junior circuit, he won the bronze medal in the 2015 World Championship, behind, yes, Bolt and Gatlin.
Later, at another news conference, a reporter from a Washington D.C. television station began her question to US swimmer Katie Ledecky, a native of that area, by first announcing that Ledecky will be missed when she leaves to attend Stanford in the fall. There are medals to be won in the judo events, and the table tennis matches continue in Riocentro. Your first worldwide swimming race and you are in London, at the Olympics, in a final, in a swimming arena that is deafening because of the local support for Rebecca Adlington, the world champion, the gold medallist at 800m freestyle in Beijing four years earlier and hotly fancied to repeat that feat on home ground.
The hype around Dressel comes despite an improbable two-year hiatus as a 17-year-old. “I was just trying to figure some things out spiritually”.
“I was thrilled (for Katie)”, Marsh said.
If that’s not a medal then you have to accept that we’re racing against the best in the world.
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The Columbus, Ohio native will command more screen time than most in Rio. They are the reigning World Cup champions, and they haven’t lost a significant worldwide match in five years. The Netherlands, Canada and Sweden are also in contention for medals.
