Twelve years on from her stunning 800m freestyle victory at the London Olympics, Katie Ledecky is headed to her fourth straight Games in Paris aiming to extend an astonishing run of sustained excellence.
The American freestyle great, whose talents were once dubbed “otherworldly” by Michael Phelps’ mentor Bob Bowman, brings an even-keeled approach that doesn’t hide a fierce competitive streak as she vies to add to her cache of 10 Olympic medals – seven of them gold.
She’s just the ninth American swimmer to qualify for at least four Olympic teams, and to hear Ledecky tell it, the competition on her sport’s biggest stage, and the grinding work needed to make it happen, never get old.
“I think it’s kind of the opposite for me,” Ledecky said. “I feel like I enjoy this more and more each year.
“I think it’s a testament to the people that I have around me, the people that I’ve had around me my whole career in Bethesda, Maryland, and out at Stanford, now in Florida, just really great communities that keep me excited about the sport – great teammates that push me every day, great coaches that believe in me and push me to continue to reach for bigger and bigger goals.”
Ledecky has dominated distance freestyle swimming for more than a decade.
She was just 15 when she won the 800m freestyle at the London Games in 2012. She repeated it in Rio four years later, when her 800m triumph was part of a four-gold haul that included the 200m and 400m free.
At the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics, Ledecky grabbed a third straight 800m free gold and won the 1,500m free when it was added to the Olympic women’s programme for the first time.
But she was relegated to silver in the 400m free in Tokyo, and she’ll be tested right out of the gate in that race in Paris, with Australian Ariarne Titmus and Canadian teenager Summer McIntosh – who briefly held the world record last year – favored ahead of the American.
McIntosh also handed Ledecky her first defeat in an 800m free final since 2010 at a meet in Florida in February.
“I care a lot about the 800 and the 1,500, and then the 400 is a great race,” Ledecky said. “I want to be right in there, and same with that [4x200m] relay.”
Ledecky said the addition of the 1,500m to the Olympic slate for women had changed her training focus somewhat – making the 200m free more of a stretch and prompting her to drop the individual 200m.
It’s the kind of adjustment she appears to make seamlessly, just as she has moved through the age-group and collegiate ranks and now to her Florida training base with coach Anthony Nesty – who won a pioneering Olympic butterfly gold for Suriname in 1988.
No one-hit wonder
“It’s definitely been a learning process, and it’s changed as I’ve gotten older,” Ledecky said.
“There’s different things I’ve learned about myself, about my training, about my nutrition, about my recovery, all those things that come into play.”
Ledecky’s longevity means she now finds herself competing against a raft of young rivals that she herself inspired.
“I don’t think I would really be here if it weren’t for her,” says US Olympian Erin Gemmel – who dressed up as Ledecky for Halloween back in 2013 and will now likely team with her in the 4x200m free relay in Paris.
It’s not something Ledecky ever imagined when she took up swimming as a six-year-old.
“I never dreamed of that as a young kid, to make it to an Olympics,” Ledecky said. “After London I wanted to get back to that level, prove I wasn’t just a one-hit wonder, but at the same time I reminded myself that anything more than that is just like icing on the cake, cherry on top – because I just never thought I’d make it to that one Olympics.”
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