TTen years to the day Katie Ledecky won her first Olympic gold in London in 2012, she has won her ninth.
“I’m a little relieved that I got my hand on the wall first,” Ledecky said of his victory in the 800m freestyle on Saturday at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. “I knew August 3rd would be the day I won in 2012. And I didn’t want August 3rd to be a day I didn’t like moving forward. So I kind of felt like I put a lot of pressure on myself, but I’m really happy that I was able to get the job done. I definitely wouldn’t have imagined that in 2012.”
Ledecky now has 14 Olympic medals, eight of them gold, beating her own record for the most medals won by an American woman in Olympic history. While Ledecky continues to reach new milestones when it comes to superlatives, she doesn’t focus on the records or the historical narrative of her career. “I don’t really think about that stuff much,” she said Saturday. “I really take it one race at a time. But I know there are only a handful of people who have won that many gold medals or that many medals. It’s an honor to be there with so many great athletes from around the world over the years, and I never imagined myself in this position.”
For Ledecky, it’s a fitting way to end the season and the Olympic Games; Earlier this year, Canadian Summer McIntosh, who did not swim the 800m in Paris but won three golds and a silver at those Games, defeated Ledecky in the 800m freestyle in a small competition in Ledecky’s training state of Florida. “Racing Summer definitely prepared me for moments like this,” Ledecky said of the motivation he was beaten for the first time since 2010 in that race. “I think she prepared me for tonight. I definitely had some of my best distance sets right after that; It really sparked something in me.”
In Saturday’s 800m, Australia’s Ariarne Titmus repeated her Olympic silver medal and Ledecky’s teammate Paige Madden fell more than five seconds from her previous personal best time, set during qualifying in Paris to qualify. for the final, and reached third place for bronze.
Commenting on the momentous occasion and Ledecky’s victory, Titmus said she was in “sixth grade at primary school – that’s how remarkable she is” when Ledecky, now competing in her fourth Olympics, won her first Olympic medal. “I hope I made her a better athlete because she certainly made me the athlete that I am and I felt very privileged to run alongside her,” Titmus said.
Ledecky, who enjoys training and being with his training partners in Florida, who include Bobby Finke, Caeleb Dressel and Kieran Smith, said he will probably take a break after Paris and has “absolutely no idea what my fall will look like in terms of How long will I take a break and will I go to any meetings? But if I go back to training on September 1st and train all fall, I’ll be a happy camper.”
Team USA won additional medals in the pool, with Kate Douglass finishing with silver in the 200m individual medley. Teammate Alex Walsh finished third but was disqualified for an improper turn during the transition from backstroke to breaststroke.
In the final race of the night, the U.S. mixed medley team won gold in a world record time of 3:37.43, ending talk earlier in the week about the depth of the pool that some felt was slowing times. It is only the second time that the event has been part of Olympic swimming, and teams can choose two women and two men to swim the four strokes, in any order.
The USA chose to start with Ryan Murphy in the backstroke, and he set the pace for the rest of the race, followed by Nic Finke, silver medalist in Paris in the breaststroke, Gretchen Walsh, who also won silver in these Games, with the part butterfly that took Team USA to world record pace and Tori Huske’s freestyle. It was sweet redemption for the USA, who finished fifth at the last Olympics in the race’s debut. China finished second with silver and Australia, the Olympic champion in Tokyo, settled for bronze. The relay gold and Ledekcy’s victory put the U.S. behind the Australians in the pool gold medal count, although the U.S. outpaces the Australians in total medals, 25 to 16.
Team USA has more opportunities to add to its gold medal tally with another day of racing on Sunday.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
