Ledecky, Dressel lead field at pro meet in Santa Clara

Former Stanford swimmer Katie Ledecky, winner of five Olympic gold medals, and Caeleb Dressel, a seven- time world champion, headline the field for the TYR Pro Swim Series at the George F. Haines International Aquatic Center in Santa Clara.

The main competition runs today through Sunday.

Among the other stars scheduled to compete are Stanford’s Simone Manuel, Nathan Adrian, Matt Grevers, Lilly King and Ryan Lochte.

Ledecky, who recently left Stanford to turn pro, won a goldmedal in the 800 freestyle at the 2012 London Olympics as a 15-yearold. At the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016, she won four golds, one silver and set two world records.

Dressel won an Olympic gold in the 4x100 relay in Rio, then took seven golds at the 2017 World Championships.

Manuel won two golds and two silvers at the Rio Games. By tying for first in the 100 freestyle in an Olympic-record 52.70 seconds, Manuel became the first African- American woman to win a goldmedal in an individual event.

Adrian, a former Cal swimmer, has won five gold medals over three Olym- pics (Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016). He also won a silver and two bronze medals in those Games.

Grevers won two golds and a silver in 2008, and a gold and a silver in 2012. King won gold twice in Rio.

Lochte, a 12-time Olympic medalist, became notorious for an incident at the 2016 Olympics. He originally claimed that he and three USA teammates were the victims in an armed robbery at a Rio de Janeiro gas station.

As it turned out, Rio police said the swimmers vandalized a restroom after a night of partying and armed guards confronted them and asked them to pay for the damage.

“It’s how you want to make it look like,” Lochte said in an interview with NBC at the time. “Whether you call it a robbery or whether you call it extortion or us just paying for the damages, we don’t know. All we know is that there was a gun pointed in our direction and we were demanded to give money.”

Amanwho helped translate conversations between Lochte, his teammates and the armed security guards at the gas station says a gun wasn’t pointed at them during the encounter. Fernando Deluz, a 38-year- old disc jockey, also said that the Americans decided to pay for property they destroyed to avoid calling police.

But nearly as soon as his story came out, Lochte gave a different account in a detailed statement, saying two guns were pointed at the athletes as the event unfolded. Lochte apologized on Instagram for not being “more careful and candid” about how he described the incident.

USA Swimming suspended Lochte from competition for 10 months. He returned last August.

• The meet got underway on Thursday night with the 1,500 meters. Zane Grothe won the men’s race with a time of 15:18.43.

Stanford’s True Sweetser was second (15:19.86), followed by Ricardo Vargas Jacobo. Cal’s Nick Norman (15:22.98) was fourth.

Ashley Neidigh won the women’s race in 16:17.43, a career-best time.

“I don’t know if I was expecting it,” said Neidigh. “My goal was to be under 16:20 this meet just based on some of the things I’ve been doing in training. That’s what I was hoping for.”

Stanford’s Megan Byrnes was second at 16:20.46.

Leah Stevens finished in third place.