Throughout her illustrious career, Katie Ledecky’s demeanor has been as steady as her racing.
Calm. Deliberate. Almost emotionless.
Then came Tuesday night after the Stanford graduate won the historic 1,500 meters freestyle at the Tokyo Olympics.
The tears flowed after winning her first gold medal in Tokyo on a night she gave the world a glimpse of her vulnerable side.
Ledecky, 24, briefly teared up later in explaining the power of a gold medal and how it has brought smiles to the faces of people she visited at children’s hospitals and the Wounded Warriors at the Walter Reed Bethesda Naval Medical Center.
“I wanted to get a gold medal to have that opportunity again,” Ledecky said.
As the world’s greatest female distance swimmer, Ledecky shared a side of herself she rarely does. Ledecky dominated her signature event about an hour after failing to win a medal in an Olympic race for the first time.
Ledecky finished fifth in the 200 freestyle, a race won by the latest swim star, Ariarne Titmus of Australia.
Ledecky shelved her disappointment to spend her time focusing on winning the first 1,500 women’s race in Olympic history.
Ledecky hit the wall in a time of 15 minutes, 37.24 seconds, well off her world-record of 15:20.48 from 2018.
Ledecky, who holds world records in the 400, 800 and 1,500-meter freestyles, won her career sixth gold medal.
“It’s not easy when your times are world records,” she said. “You can’t keep dropping times every time you swim.”
Sullivan doesn’t see herself approaching Ledecky’s times: “They won’t be broken for a long time,” she said.
Ledecky, who earned a degree in psychology at Stanford, can’t help herself, though. She approaches each race as if she can do something special.
“That anything can happen,” Ledecky said. “At a local meet in the Bay Area with nobody watching, I can throw down” a record time.
Ledecky’s mindset has made her one of the greatest swimmers in history. But it also has taken a toll. It is something she has rarely acknowledged.
“It’s a hard attitude to maintain for nine years,” she said.
Throughout her teen years, Ledecky made it look so easy when setting world records almost every time she dove in. Many talked about her winning five races in Tokyo to become the most decorated female swimming gold medalist.
Instead, the Tokyo Games have shown her vulnerability, starting last Sunday when Titmus out-touched Ledecky in the 400 meters.
Ledecky had put it all behind her by the time she reached the finish Tuesday night in the mile. She stayed in the water to watch her teammate grab the silver.
The race belonged to Ariarne Titmus, the Australian sensation who defeated Ledecky on Sunday night in a dramatic 400 freestyle.
Titmus, 20, won in an Olympic record-time of 1 minute 53.50 seconds. Ledecky was 1.71 seconds back.
Hong Kong’s Bernadette Siobhan Haughey, who swims at the University of Michigan, led until the final meters. Haughey held off Canadian bronze medalist Penny Oleksiak at the wall.
Ledecky, who won the race at the 2016 Rio Games, was out of it from the start. She sat seventh after the first turn.
–In the 200 individual medley, University of Virginia teammates Alex Walsh and Kate Douglas got the silver and bronze medals, respectively. Japan’s Yui Ohashi won the gold medal with a time of 2:08.52. Walsh was 0.13 of a second behind. Douglas held off Great Britain’s Abbie Woods by 0.09 for third place.
–The U.S. men’s 4X200 relay missed a medal, finishing fourth just behind bronze medalist Australia. Great Britain won the gold medal by 3.23 seconds over runner-up Russia.
