Olympic freestyle swimmer Katie Ledecky is likely one of the most adorned Olympians in US historical past and will develop into top-of-the-line swimmers ever.
With 10 Olympic medals, 21 World Championship titles, and 14 world information, the 27-year-old athlete is wanting so as to add to her spectacular résumé on the Paris Olympics.
The 6-foot-tall swimmer has been competing on the world stage since she was a young person. She competed in her first Olympics when she was simply 15 years previous, on the 2012 Video games in London.
Ledecky is so distinctive that she generally solely has herself to compete in opposition to. Freestyle has develop into her signature stroke, and he or she at the moment holds the world document in each the ladies’s 800-meter freestyle and the ladies’s 1,500-meter freestyle.
Ledecky accomplished the 800-meter freestyle in 8 minutes, 4.79 seconds, and the 1,500-meter freestyle in 15-minutes, 20.48-seconds.
Paris will mark her fourth time competing within the Olympic Video games, however she has stated it may not be her final. If she competes in Los Angeles in 2028, she is going to be part of the record of simply 861 athletes who’ve competed in at the least 5 Olympics.
Here is what else to learn about Ledecky forward of this yr’s Summer season Video games.
Ledecky’s youth and profession
Ledecky was born in Washington, DC, and her mother and father raised her in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb about two miles outdoors the nation’s capital.
Ledecky began swimming at age six — following within the footsteps of her brother, Michael, who was a aggressive swimmer by highschool.
Ledecky was additionally impressed to swim by her mom, Mary, who was a collegiate swimmer on the College of New Mexico. Her father, David, is an legal professional.
She attended Stone Ridge College of the Sacred Coronary heart, a Catholic prep faculty in Bethesda, and continued her training and swimming profession at Stanford College, the place studied psychology and political science and in addition received eight NCAA titles.
Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photograph Financial institution/NBCUniversal through Getty Pictures
After graduating from Stanford in 2021, she left California. Ledecky now lives in Gainesville, Florida, and trains with Anthony Nesty, the top coach of the US Males’s Olympic Swimming workforce.
Nesty additionally coaches the lads’s and ladies’s swim groups on the College of Florida, and Ledecky is volunteering as a coach.
Ledecky has additionally been dominant outdoors the three Summer season Video games.
Within the biennial World Aquatics Championships, Ledecky is the second-most adorned swimmer, trailing solely Michael Phelps.
Since her first championships in 2013, Ledecky has racked up 26 medals — 21 golds and 5 silvers — in comparison with Phelps’ 33.
Sixteen of the golds had been particular person titles. With these 16 titles, also referred to as world championship titles, Ledecky has really bested Phelps, who has 15.
Ledecky’s Olympic journey
At 15, when Ledecky competed within the 2012 London Olympics, she received her first gold medal within the 800-meter freestyle.
Throughout her subsequent Olympics — in Rio, in 2016 — she racked up a formidable 5 medals, 4 of them gold.
She stood on the prime of the rostrum within the 200-, 400-, and 800-meter freestyle occasions and the 4 x 200-meter freestyle relay. She additionally received silver within the 4 x 100-meter freestyle relay.
In Tokyo, she added to her Olympic-medal whole with two golds and two silvers.
Tom Pennington/Getty Pictures
Ledecky is just one Olympic gold away from tying American Jenny Thompson’s document for the winningest feminine swimmer of all time.
Thompson, with 12 whole medals over the course of her profession, additionally holds the document for many Olympic medals by an American lady. Ledecky may break that document on the Paris Video games, too.
There’s extra: Ledecky is just two gold medals away from the all-time document for gold medals received by a feminine Olympian in any sport.
We’ll be watching to see what number of medals Ledecky provides to her assortment in Paris.