Saturday afternoon, Katie Ledecky opened the Notes application on her phone in her hotel room and hit an object line in a word: “believe”. It had to start there, because how can you accomplish the incredible?
Under this head, LEDECKY plotted a few strokes for the 800 meter freestyle that she was swimming a few hours later in the swimming competition of the Tyr Pro series in Fort Lauderdale, in Florida. It was not a vague estimate. She broke the race by 50 meters increments and hit her dixuches in the tenth of a second. It is something she did on the occasion dating from her youth (“scribbles”, she calls her), writing potential sharing times in various events in the back of a notebook when her childhood friends could have drawn a rainbow or a puppy.
It has always been built differently.
The first time throughout this process on Saturday, Ledecky added the divisions and reached 8 minutes and 5.4 seconds. It was less than a second on the world record of 8: 04.79, it took place in the event at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2016. It’s so closeLedecky thought of herself. Why not go there?
“So I returned and I ended up shaving a few tenths,” explains Ledecky Illustrated sports.
The new objective time was a history 8: 04.6. Then she got out and swam it –only faster. In one of the biggest exploits in swimming history, Ledecky broke his nine -year record with a time of 8: 04.12, dropping 0.67 on what had been an untouchable standard at the top of his unprecedented powers.
Sunday morning, she opened the Notes application, looked at her divided predictions and thought: “Oh my god, it’s quite perfect.”
This is how the size occurs – the state of mind on a large scale (“believe”), then the details of what it would take to achieve it, until the tenth of a second.
To what extent does the greatest swimmer in history know well and her job? With a elementary degree that it can explore 16 divisions of 50 meters and be in half a second to predict its time.
Ledecky came out a little faster than what she expected, predicting a first 50.9 seconds of 27.9 seconds and a 29.9 second 50. Real times: 27.59 and 29.98, putting her three tenths before the pace of the goal. The second 100 was dead: she expected 1: 00.8 and went 1: 00.81. The third and fourth 100 were just a slower than expected tick, the two 1: 01.7 compared to her 1: 01.4 planned. Then, he was back on the right track through the fifth, sixth and seventh 100s: 1: 01.21, then 1: 01.28, then 1: 01.10. Just like pre-orained.
The last 100 – especially the last 50 – were crazy. Ledecky predicted a 59.8, broken down to 30.3 in the first 50 and 29.5 in the second. Reality was a charge of 58.75, with a load of 30.29 and 28.46 on arrival. With a large crowd at Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center actively losing its collective spirit, the final push has produced a world record.
“This would not have been possible without them,” said Ledecky about fans whose roars stimulated him. “I said to myself actually:” Do not let these cheers waste. So I made a few additional dolphin kicks on the wall and I returned a little louder. »»
The result seems to be unprecedented – a period of nine years between the same person who broke a world record of long counters has never occurred before. There have been several gaps of seven and eight, but not new. He marked the sixth time that Ledecky broke the world record of 800 over a period of 12 years, dating back to the age of 16 in 2013.
The 800 crowned a categorical reminder that Katie Ledecky will not disappear anytime soon. She should win a lot of medals at the world championships in Singapore this summer, and it will take something unforeseen to keep her from the fifth Olympic Games and more medals in 2028 in Los Angeles. Ledecky immediately announced that this could come together – part of the professional circuit, but essentially an American championships next month – was going to be something big by abandoning the second faster 1,500 meters free in history the opening evening. Then she supported it with its fastest free 400 since Rio in 2016.
These swimming has energized the whole meeting. His American compatriot Gretchen Walsh then broke his own world record in the 100 Butterfly twice on Saturday. Between the Walsh Nage record, Ledecky released his phone and sketched his plan.
The result of this was emotional. Ledecky slammed his hands in the water while the crowd broke out, and the tears followed shortly after. She looked in the stands to see her mother, Mary Gen; The first person hugged her when she left the pool was Stanford’s assistant coach Kim Williams, a Ledecky teammate with Cardinal from 2016. At the time, almost a decade ago, it could have seemed that world records would only fall, but sport does not work in this way.
Ledecky continued to build his incomparable curriculum vitae, winning nine Olympic gold medals and 14 medals in total in four summer games. But it is incredibly difficult to recreate perfection, and in a way in a way better.
“You continue a ghost,” she said. “Chasing your past, a version of your teenager.”
You can say that the most impressive thing about Ledecky is that it has never been discouraged by this ghost chase, never ceased to believe that it could do it. Beating the competition with a 50 -meter pool length continued tirelessly – and continues to be one of the most remarkable visuals in sport – but she was not trying to beat those in the pool with her at the time. She was trying to beat the ledecky for the past years.
As she said in 2021 at the Tokyo Olympic Games: “I always try to be my best and be better than I have never been. It is not easy when your time are world records in certain events. I approach each race with the attitude that anything can happen, and I can break the world records this race. I will intensify and throw away. “
I wrote last summer that having this attitude requires swimmers lie On what is possible as they age and move beyond their best moments. LEDECKY proved that she was not lying on Saturday evening. She was telling the truth. At 28, she can be better than ever.
“I think there has always been this myth in sport that distance swimmers are better when they are younger,” she said. “I have always questioned this and I had potential lights to go the best moments.
“I care, right?” I love the process, I like training more than race, and it’s even more now. I come up against some of these moments (world record), feeling this thrill again. ”
