America’s latest swim sensation enters the Olympic Aquatics Stadium this weekend chasing history. Given the praise from fellow swimmers, there’s far more substance than sensationalism surrounding Ledecky.
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Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, returns for his fifth Games.
The rangy 6-footer has a chance to take the oxygen out of the pool over the next week by cementing her place as the greatest freestyle swimmer in decades. Four years later, she comes to her second Olympics armed with a raft of world championships and world records.
“Anybody else’s expectations don’t really mean that much to me”, she said at the U.S. Olympic trials in June.
Before every race, she’ll offer a prayer, she told the Catholic Standard, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington.
The 19-year-old Olympic gold medalist, who graduated from Catholic schools Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart last year and from Little Flower School in 2011, would represent the United States once again in Rio de Janeiro for the summer Olympics.
It won’t be surprising to see Ledecky match Meyer after last year’s World Championships served as a rich appetizer for Rio.
They best get used to the feeling, possibly as early as Saturday if Ledecky is named to the 4×100-metre relay team, even though it isn’t her strongest event.
The 400 will likely give the world its first glimpse of Ledecky’s nearly absurd dominance. “She has a very special family, and she’s an incredibly gifted person – with a high, high self-actualization and self-awareness, otherworldly good instincts and intelligence, a gifted physiognomy, plus an incredible drive to be the best”.
The American has smashed the 800m world record four times in three years, taking Briton Rebecca Adlington’s previous benchmark of 8:14:10 down to the current 8:06.68. Then the gun goes and you change everything. “I’d be tight and dead”.
The coach unexpectedly selected her as part of the us team for the preliminary round of the 4x100m freestyle relay on Saturday even though she only came 7th at that distance in the USA trials.
In the interview, Ledecky discussed how her faith is a source of strength and how the communities at home have supported her along the road to her second Olympics. Still unable to drive, Ledecky admits she’s held off on getting her license to embrace spending extra time with her parents. She’s got a plan, but for the time being will remain laser focused on the Olympics. “I’d love another swim but that’s totally up to the coaches”.
Nathan Adrian was fastest in the trials, with Caeleb Dressel second and Ryan Held third. Barring a false start or defrocked Irish priest tackling her in the middle of a race, she’ll win the 400 and 800 freestyle by about 30 seconds, combined.
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. She won gold in the 200m, the 400m, the 800m and the 1500m. But even her blossoming Olympic career launched unexpectedly. It was an 800m personal best for Boyle, 8min 17.65sec.
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“My Catholic faith is very important to me”, she said. She has won fifteen medals in major worldwide competitions, all of them gold, spanning the Summer Olympics, the World Championships, and the Pan-Pacific Championships, having broken 11 world records. “I reset my goals and wanted to swim more than just the 800 free. It works for her”. The British announcers on this feed, who didn’t yet know Ledecky, speculate she won’t be able to keep up the pace as she heads out fast in the first 200 meters.
