Amid Historic Career, Katie Ledecky Just Had Her Greatest Achievement With Latest World Record
Two main factors have made Katie Ledecky the consensus greatest female swimmer in history. The first is an unflinching consistency in the distance freestyle events, leading to a streak of dominance unparalleled in the sport’s history. She is the only female swimmer to win four consecutive Olympic gold medals in one event, the 800 freestyle, and she has been even more unbeatable in the 1500 free.
Ledecky has won nine Olympic gold medals, putting her into a six-way tie for second all-time among Olympians in any sport, and 14 total medals. On the World Championship level, she has 21 golds and five silvers, her titles over 800 and 1500 meters already spanning a decade from 2013 to 2023. Unlike Michael Phelps, there have been no massive drop-offs during Ledecky’s run, no outside-the-pool drama, no short-lived retirements. Ledecky’s one hiccup came when she was sick at the 2019 World Championships, but she still won three medals at that meet, including a hard-fought gold in the 800 free.
If that was the entirety of Ledecky’s story, greatest-of-all-time honors might already be laid upon her shoulders. But then you recall what Ledecky is capable of at peak form, moments of record-shattering, awe-inspiring brilliance. That’s what we saw this weekend in Fort Lauderdale, the latest stop of USA Swimming’s Pro Series providing the setting for a Ledecky masterpiece.
Sometimes, Ledecky’s record-breaking achievements have come at unexpected times. Of the 15 long course world records she has set during her career, five have come outside championship-level domestic or international competition, including her most recent global mark set prior to this weekend. That came in May 2018, when she knocked five seconds off the 1500 free world record in her first meet as a professional.
Ledecky’s accomplishments during just the seven-year gap when she did not set any long course world records would qualify on their own as Hall-of-Fame caliber. But in Fort Lauderdale, she put together the sort of OMG performance we came to expect from Ledecky during her teenage years. The first indication came Wednesday night when she swam the second-fastest 1500 free of her career, behind only that 2018 world record, and a day later, she swam the 400 free faster than at any point since the 2016 Olympics.
Those Games in Rio de Janeiro are widely regarded as Ledecky’s finest meet, when she crushed her own world records in the 400 and 800 and earned a hard-fought victory over Sarah Sjostrom in the 200 free, making her only the second woman along with Debbie Meyer to sweep those gold medals at an Olympics. But as she came from behind to pass Summer McIntosh in the Fort Lauderdale 400 free, she was only 35-hundredths back of her all-time best, a mark of 3:56.81 prompting Ledecky to admit, “I don’t know if I ever thought I was going to be 3:56 again.”
Katie Ledecky at the Paris Olympics — Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
And on the meet’s final day, she pulled off the unthinkable, beating the 800-meter world record of 8:04.79 that she set in Rio. This record was clearly the most daunting of any Ledecky set, with no one having come within two seconds in the nine years since. Ledecky’s best during that span had been an 8:07.07 at U.S. Nationals in 2023.
But on this occasion, she attacked the pace early on, jumping a full second ahead of her own clip in the early going of the race. The splits started catching up to her in the middle portion of the race, but she was never more than five hundredths behind. Nearly dead even with the pace entering the last lap, Ledecky took advantage. “The crowd was amazing tonight; I couldn’t have done it without that,” she said, per USA Swimming. “I flipped at the 750, and it was loud in here, and I just told myself I’m not letting this opportunity go to waste and started sprinting.”
The final time of 8:04.12 elicited tears from Ledecky and her multitude of supporters in attendance. A USA Swimming Instagram reel showed Ledecky embracing Kim Williams, her former college teammate with Stanford and now an assistant coach with the Cardinal. Ledecky said, “I can’t stop smiling, it’s been like that all week though, so it’s not really new. It’s been so many years in the making to do it tonight.”
Many, many years. Ledecky is 28 years old, an age by which most distance swimmers and most of her teammates on the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams had stepped away from the sport. She is still going and eclipsing times she posted as a teenager. Many swimmers gear toward shorter distances as they get older; not Ledecky, who has shifted away from the 200 free in the latter stages of her career to see what she is capable of in the longer races.
For years, that meant continued dominance in the 800 and 1500 free in international competition, working hard to survive scares from Ariarne Titmus in the 16-lap event in the last two Olympic finals. But this meet was about Ledecky rejoining the record-breaking club, setting her latest 800 record 10 years and nine months after her first at the 2013 World Championships.
Janet Evans, considered the greatest distance swimmer in history before Ledecky’s emergence, never did anything like this. During her career, Evans set six world records in the 400, 800 and 1500 free, but all between July 1987 and August 1989. She was 24 years old when she finished her career at the 1996 Olympics, topping out at sixth in the 800 free.
What Ledecky is doing was already without precedent, and this world record, this latest brush with history, marks the greatest accomplishment of her career.
Yes, this surpasses any of the Olympic performances or medal collections. A world record after a gap of almost nine years in this event, finally eclipsing the peak form she chased for so long, is ultimate Ledecky.
Greg Meehan, who coached Ledecky for five years at Stanford and now leads USA Swimming’s National team as Managing Director, summed up what he saw. “I’m filled with emotion from seeing her journey. From 2012, with what she did, to her triumph in Rio, to the ups and downs of being a superstar and the pressure to do that every time she races from the expectations of those fans seeing her for the first time, to see her now at 28 years old is beyond inspiring.”
Yes, “inspiring” is the word. Katie’s accomplishment(s) the past few days have lifted my spirit! Thanks, Katie.
I am making a good salary from home $1400-$2400/week , which is amazing, under a year back I was jobless in a horrible economy. I thank God every day I was blessed with these instructions and now it’s my duty to pay it forward and share it with Everyone,
Here is what I do…… Tinyurl.com/46fjveeh
I am thrilled for witnessing her example and successes. At age 67 and being an avid swimmer, I am sure her zeal can be a springboard for us all!
I can’t stop reading about this achievement, and this article is one of the best. Imagine what it must be like to love doing something this much, for this long, at this level. It’s hard to even understand — and I’m a person who really loves swimming. This is just…beyond.