LOOK OUT, WORLD
Teenager Ledecky poised to chase even more golds
She is one of the brightest stars for the United States Olympic team, and teenager Katie Ledecky begins her individual pursuit of swimming world dominance at the Rio Olympics on Sunday afternoon.
The niece of Islanders coowner Jon Ledecky and Maryland native was set to start her individual runs at gold with the 400-meter freestyle, followed by the 200-meter freestyle on Monday and her best event, the 800-meter freestyle on Thursday.
Ledecky burst onto the scene as a fresh-faced 15year-old at the London Olympics four years ago. There, she stunned the world by capturing gold in the 800-meter freestyle in terrific fashion. She blew past the field and won by more than four seconds, missing the world record by 0.53 seconds.
Uncle Jon was there for that, and he recently said he was planning to go to Rio to watch his 19-year-old niece, with little fear of the Zika virus or with the overwhelming threat of insecurity. He cited the International Olympic Committee, despite its corruption at many levels, as the reason for his faith.
Yet, it would have been hard to miss what is presumed to be another coronation of Katie’s place as the best female swimmer on the planet, if not all time.
Since the London Games, Ledecky has become a ninetime world champion and world-record holder in the 400-, 800-, and 1,500-meter freestyle, as well as the 500-, 1,000- and 1,650-yard freestyle. She excels at the stroke that is meant to get people from Point A to Point B as fast as possible, and she does it in long distances better than anyone.
She got her first taste of these games Saturday as part of the 4x100 freestyle relay team that won the silver medal, finishing second to Australia, which set a world record. But it was the individual events yet to come that awaited with bright spotlight.
“This is a one-in-a-billion human being,” family friend and Capitals majority owner Ted Leonsis recently told The Washington Post. Leonsis originally partnered with Jon Ledecky to buy the NHL team back in 1998. “She has a very special family, and she’s an incredibly gifted person — with a high, high self-actualization and self-awareness, otherworldly good in-
stincts and intelligence, a gifted physiognomy, plus an incredible drive to be the best. And it’s all natural.
“How did this happen? It’s hard work, obviously. But there’s something that drives this young woman to be the best.”
Ledecky is more than just the best. She is the best by a large margin.
At the 2015 World Championships in Russia, with the best swimmers in the world as competition, she won the 1,500-meter freestyle by 14.66 seconds. She won the 800 free by 10.26 seconds. She has won fifteen medals in major international competitions, all of them gold, spanning the Summer Olympics, the World Championships, and the Pan-Pacific Championships, having broken 11 world records.
Ledecky was named Swimming World’s World Swimmer of the Year and the American Swimmer of the Year in 2013, 2014 and 2015, as well as the FINA Swimmer of the Year in 2013.
“We’re fortunate to be living in this age in our sport, the Ledecky era,” Chuck Wielgus, executive director of USA Swimming, told the newspaper. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen anybody like Katie before. And I think in the future we’re going to look back, and the sport’s history will be divided into pre-Katie and post-Katie. She’ll be this iconic figure by which all future distance and middle-distance swimmers will be measured.”