INDIANAPOLIS — Katie Ledecky glided through a pristine pool here Saturday night, edging past her helpless peers on her way to her fourth Olympic Games.
As she has done reliably for more than a decade, she easily pulled ahead of the pursuing American pack by one, then three lengths.
She swam the 400 meters in 3 minutes, 58.35 seconds at the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials, touching the wall amid cheers and earning a spot in the 2024 Paris Games.
But there she would be the underdog.
Ledecky, 27, has been getting used to her former foreigner role ever since Australia’s Ariarne Titmuss dethroned her in the 400 freestyle in Tokyo in 2021. In that historic Olympic race, Titmuss beat Ledecky by 0.67 seconds. The following spring, she broke Ledecky’s world record, underscoring the new balance of power in the 400.
Ledecky dominated the world championships from 2013 to about 2019, but now it’s Titmus who’s the reigning queen. She and Canadian teenage phenom Summer McIntosh swapped the world record in 2023. After a health scare last fall, Titmus has once again established herself as the woman to beat. The 23-year-old Tasmanian clocked 3 minutes 55.44 seconds at the Australian qualifiers earlier this week, nearly three seconds faster than Ledecky. That was just 0.06 seconds off her own world best, and she has a good chance of shaving that off in Paris.
Meanwhile, Ledecky is the favorite to win gold in the 1,500-meter freestyle and the 800-meter freestyle. She’s sure to qualify in those two signature events next week at the U.S. Trials, which have grown from the basketball arena here in Omaha to an NFL powerhouse. That’s in part thanks to her star power: She’s widely considered the greatest female swimmer ever to have a face and name cheered at Lucas Oil Stadium. She could set or break all kinds of Olympic records this summer.
She also continues to remarkably maintain her sub-four-minute potential in the 400 meters, even into her 20s.
And her coach, Anthony Nesty, told Yahoo Sports: “It’s definitely a testament to her character, her passion for the sport. To perform at such a high level for such a long period of time and in the events she swims, it’s all a matter of willpower.”
Ledecky publicly said she was happy with her time in Tokyo, but people close to her say she was a little unhappy. “She was probably disappointed with her last swim,” Nesty told Yahoo Sports last month. So shortly after her return, she made the big cross-country move from Stanford to Florida, where Nesty is.
There she perfected her strokes, got into shape, and got really into grinding.
“I love training,” she recently told CBS. “In fact, even if there were no competitions, I think I’d still love training.”
But she Better?Perhaps she can even pursue her former self?
You’ll find that out in Paris.
The shadow of who she was in 2016 is perhaps out of reach. But the shadow of who she is in 2021 is within reach.
She’s also no stranger to this kind of chase: “I’ve been competing with myself for years,” she told NBC this spring, and the long-distance races are no different.
But now, in the 400 metres, she is chasing Australia’s Titmus and possibly Canada’s McIntosh, but they may fall just short.
