SWIMMER LEDECKY EYES HISTORY
I feel very good about those goals and feel like they still are in place for this year
LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Five-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky is powering through the uncertainties of the Covid-19 pandemic, her sights still firmly set on making history at the rescheduled Tokyo Games.
The US freestyle great, whose 15 world titles are the most of any woman swimmer, adapted and adjusted along with the rest of the world in 2020, but she isn’t giving any ground when it comes to her goals in the pool.
“I feel very good about those goals and feel like they still are in place for this year,” Ledecky said in a video conference as she prepared to travel to a swim meet this week in San Antonio, Texas, her first such trip in a year.
It’s another step on the road to Tokyo, where Ledecky is eying an ambitious program that she hopes will see her claim the first women’s 1,500-meter gold medal ever awarded at the Games.
“I’m really excited that the 1,500 meter free is in the Olympics for the first time for women and that there’s parity in the schedule between the men’s and women’s schedules,” she said.
“It’s been a long time coming.
“I know the history of US women’s freestyle swimmers and I know there’s a lot of women’s freestylers that haven’t had those opportunities that I’ve had and didn’t have the opportunity to swim the 1,500 or even other events in the Olympics,” said Ledecky, who will also be targeting the 200 meters, 400 meters and 800 meters freestyle and the 4x200 meters free relay.
“So I’m going to take up the opportunity and hopefully get Team USA started on the right note for that event moving forward.”
The odds are certainly in the world record-holder’s favor, and Ledecky said she feels well-prepared despite the upheaval of the early coronavirus lockdown in California last March and the continuing changes to health protocols.
For three months, she made do swimming in a backyard pool and lifting weights in her apartment as facilities at Stanford University were shut down.
“Since the middle of last June is when Stanford opened back up. We have a lot of different protocols, one per lane or one per household so I live by myself so I’ve been one per lane for the past year,” she said.