PARIS — It's a mixed bag when young people are called the "next" version of you—it means you're a model of success, but it also means others are coming up from behind.
Such is the case with Katie Ledecky. Now at her fourth Olympic Games, the 12-time Olympic medalist won the 1,500-meter freestyle event in 15:30:02—an Olympic record—and with 10 seconds to spare ahead of surprise silver medalist Anastasiia Kirpichnikova of France. Cannabis Store
The image was familiar to those who've seen Ledecky race in the past: Known for her steadiness and consistency, her stroke so powerful that her legs, instead of propelling her, seem to just be along for the ride, Ledecky took the lead from the start, and increased it to a third of the pool's length by the race's end.
When she looked at the time at the end of the race, Ledecky slapped the water in celebration. "I was happy with the time, and happy with how it felt," she said at a post-race press conference. "It comes out. The happiness and the joy, it just comes out."
There was another reason to celebrate: This medal solidifies her place as the best female swimmer of all time. But with the next generation emerging, it might be the last major event where she's considered untouchable.
Ledecky has long been dominant in the 1,500-meter freestyle. As the New York Times reported this week, Ledecky hasn't lost this race since she was in junior high school. Since then, she's won it at five world championships and now two Olympics. And she's known for winning it with plenty of time to spare: At the last world championships, she touched the wall 17 seconds before the next finisher.
Much has been made of the fact that cameras can't fit other participants in the frame; it's like she's in the pool alone. It's something other swimmers have come to expect. They know they're swimming for second place.
It should be noted that her number of golds in this event should be higher. The women's 1,500 meters was kept out of the Olympics until 2020, something Karen Crouse wrote in the New York Times in 2014: "The shame of shutting out the top female milers from the sport's showcase meet has deepened since the London Olympics with the ascendant magic act of Katie Ledecky, who makes world records disappear." She credits sexism for the omission, as well as the event being dismissed as "too boring" (the event has been held at the swimming world championships since 2001).
Ledecky's success extends far beyond the Games' longest race, of course. With this gold, Ledecky became the first female swimmer to win golds at four Olympic Games. She now ties Jenny Thompson, Dara Torres and Natalie Coughlin for the most Olympic medals among female swimmers; she ties Thompson for the most golds. If she wins a medal at the 800-meter final Saturday, she'll be the most decorated female swimmer at the Olympics.
She is showing signs of slowing down, though you wouldn't know it from Wednesday's performance. As the 27-year-old ages, Ledecky has stopped topping the podium in the shorter events. At London 2012, a 15-year-old Ledecky won a surprise gold in the 800 meters by more than four seconds. Four years later, she won four golds and a silver in Rio. If you can call any moment in her Olympic career her "peak," that was it.
At the next Olympics, she won four medals, including silver in the 400, an event she had previously dominated. This year, she settled for bronze, and in February, she lost an 800-meter race for the first time since that same junior high school meet.
But Ledecky doesn't seem to let the passing of time bother her. Her focus, instead, is on training and technique. She doesn't even set goals for medals, she told the New York Times last week. Far from resenting the next generation of athletes, she relishes the opportunity to be a mentor to younger swimmers like Erin Gemmell, a 19-year-old who made her first Olympic team this year and competed in the 200-meter freestyle.
"I hope that some little girl out there is watching," she said of today's race.
Other swimmers credit her with inspiring them when they were younger and watching them on their own screens. Canadian swimming phenom Summer McIntosh had a poster of Ledecky on her wall as a kid; now, she competes against her. "To now be racing against her and trying to keep up with her is honestly just an honour," she told Olympics.com, adding that "every time I race against her I learn so much about swimming and the race."
Ledecky does not plan on retiring and wants to compete in Los Angeles in 2028. Clearly, she's in this for the long run. As the Associated Press put it in a profile earlier this month, she "just keeps chugging along."
Disposables Vapes For what it's worth, "chugging along" seems to be the key to Ledecky's success in this event, where she outlasts her competitors in a particularly grueling race. But someday, the camera won't have to zoom out so far to see her competitors; maybe one day someone will beat her. Maybe it'll be someone she helped get to that point. Knowing Ledecky, she'll probably take it in stride.