The Wonder of Ledecky

This is a quick story about two swimming prodigies. The first went to her first Olympic Games when she was 15. The second was even younger; she swam at her first Games at age 14. They both amazed the world with their sheer determination, their unrelenting will. My friend Mel Stewart, who won his own Olympic gold medal in the 200-meter butterfly, used to tell me that the secret to swimming success on the world stage is not just to fight through the pain but to somehow embrace the pain.

Because the pain is coming.

These two prodigies, from the very start, displayed a unique and otherworldly talent for embracing the pain. Katie Ledecky’s first national meet was actually the U.S. Olympic Trials just after she had turned 15. That was 2012. She wasn’t exactly an unknown, but she certainly wasn’t well known, and she went to Omaha and blew away the 800-meter freestyle field by two seconds.

To swim THAT much faster comes down to countless things — stroke rate and efficiency and the quality of the turns and body composition and, well, hey, I’m not Bob Bowman, just say there are a lot of things — but it inevitably comes down to a competitive fire that pushes you just a little bit harder than anybody else is willing to go. Ledecky was the youngest American at the 2012 Olympics, and before her race the announcers assured America that, despite her age, she would have a chance to medal.

She won the 800 by more than four seconds and swam the second-fastest time in history.

Eight years later — at the unfortunate 2020 Games — Summer McIntosh competed in the 400-meter freestyle at age 14. Swimming fans had been watching her for a while; she started breaking national records when she was 8 and, in time, broke more than 50 of them. She broke the Canadian National record in qualifying, then broke it again in the final. But it wasn’t quite good enough; ANOTHER prodigy, Australia’s 19-year-old Ariarne Titmus broke the Olympic record and took gold.

A 23-year-old swimmer named Katie Ledecky finished second in that race, by the way.

Summer McIntosh became probably the best pure swimmer in the world. In Paris, she won the 200- and 400-meter medleys — which require swimming all four strokes — and she set the Olympic record in the 200-meter butterfly (and, in the process, set the World Junior record because she was STILL A JUNIOR), and she took silver in the 400-meter freestyle.

A 27-year-old swimmer named Katie Ledecky won the bronze in that race, by the way.

Swimmers are not generally built to last. Prodigies come, light up the world — Janet Evans, Ian Thorpe, Missy Franklin, so many others — and then, in time, they get surpassed. That’s just the nature of the sport. Swimming is grueling, and it’s exhausting, and it’s mind-numbing. “You just spend day after day, hour after hour, staring at the line at the bottom of the pool,” Mel told me. Leave it to the kids.

Katie Ledecky will not leave it to the kids. The fact that she won the 800-meter at 15, and then won five golds in 2016, then won two more golds in 2020 and then, somehow, won TWO MORE golds in 2024 is literally beyond description. I can think of no words for it. She has tended to keep her motivations to herself, though in 2024 she did write a book called “Just Add Water,” and in it, she writes this about herself at 8 years old:

I’m not sure how much she thought about that sentence — it appears in the introduction and in passing — but that’s about as profound a statement as you can read about an athlete’s inner workings. We ask them all the time: “What drives you? What motivates you? How does it feel to hit the home run and score the touchdown and win Olympic gold and make the penalty kick save?” Their answers are never satisfying.

This feels a little bit satisfying: She likes being in that space where the mind can run quiet and the body can try hard.

Katie Ledecky set the world record in the 800-meter freestyle on Saturday at the Tyr Pro Series meet in Fort Lauderdale. It had been her record, of course, but do you know when she set it? In 2016. In Rio. I was there. This was when she was at the height of her superpowers, when she attacked the water like no one ever had before. She won that race by TWELVE SECONDS.

Saturday, at age 28, she swam faster than THAT version of herself.

She now has the 10 fastest times in the history of the women’s 800-meter.

And you know what I love just as much? Two days earlier, on Thursday, Ledecky swam the 400-meter freestyle. She is great at the 400, of course — she holds the American record and used to hold the World record — but Ledecky gets better the longer the race. And, yes, you guessed it, there was another prodigy in that race: Summer McIntosh, still young, still fresh, still at the height of her swimming game.

And it was McIntosh who went into the final 100 meters with the lead. “Ledecky is not completely out of it,” the announcer shouted, sounding unconvinced. But Ledecky kicked, they went into the final turn even, and then Katie Ledecky began pulling away, pulling away, and she got to the wall first. She had just finished an eyeblink away from the time she swam years ago.

Again, I don’t know what else to say except: Katie Ledecky is a miracle.

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