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PARIS — Katie Ledecky was all alone, in a pool here at the 2024 Olympics, crawling ahead of helpless competitors.
Katie Ledecky is all alone, still, atop her field, as she has been for more than a decade.
She did not need another gold medal to cement her place in the pantheon of Olympic greats. But here, on an unforgettable Wednesday night at Paris La Défense Arena, she won medal No. 12, gold No. 8.
She sailed to victory in the 1500-meter freestyle, finishing in an Olympic record time of 15:30.02, 10.33 seconds ahead of the silver medalist, France's Anastasiia Kirpichnikova (15:40.35). Germany's Isabel Gose took bronze (15:41.16).
But before they could even finish, Ledecky slapped the water. Famously even-keeled, she unleashed an atypical scream.
She screamed because, over the past few days, she had doubted herself. She doubted in the aftermath of Saturday's 400-meter freestyle, when an atypical 4:00.86 yielded an atypical medal: bronze. She doubted whether she had a 15:30 in her, because her first three swims here at the Paris Games "felt faster than the time," she said.
On Wednesday, in the face of that doubt, which has nagged her throughout the past year, she "finally put together a swim that matched how I felt, [that] was in line with what I thought I was capable of."
There was never any doubt about the place or the color of the medal. Ledecky won it by resuming a time-honored Olympic tradition. She wrote another chapter in her picture book of dominance. She spent much of the race swimming in a TV camera frame of her own, no peers in sight — until they appeared, in Ledecky’s peripheral vision and from the wrong side of the screen, headed in the other direction.
Such was Ledecky’s superiority yet again in the 1,500, her signature race. Such was her lead that she was often swimming north while seven other women were still swimming south. Such is her supremacy that an Olympic race seemed boring, and the result a foregone conclusion — which, of course, no Olympic medal event is.
"It’s not easy," Ledecky assured.
That it felt that way is a credit to her commitment, to her love affair with the monotonous, arduous work that this sport requires.
“I pride myself on that consistency,” she said. “I challenge myself to stay consistent.”
“Sometimes,” she added, “it can be tough feeling like you're not having a breakthrough.” She is now 27, well past the prime age for most of her distance swimming predecessors. She has not lowered her own world-record times since 2018; she has not set a new personal best in three of her four events since she was a teen.
“But to be really consistent is something that I'm really happy with,” she said last month.
It’s the longevity, and the permanence, that makes Ledecky one-of-a-kind.
DOMINANCE. pic.twitter.com/E1dpCl9QUD
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 31, 2024
On Wednesday, she became the oldest woman to ever win Olympic gold at a distance longer than 200 meters. She did it because of her rhythmic, unfailing, perhaps even compulsive devotion to the grind. She never takes time off. In recent years, she has added solo Sunday swims to the sport’s typical six-days-a-week schedule. She seems immune to burnout; impervious to ever feeling mentally fried.
It’s the type of dedication most would view as “sacrifice.” But not Ledecky. She genuinely loves the training.
“Really,” she said this spring, “if the competitions didn't exist, I think I would still love it.”
She loves how she feels in the water. It puts her mind at ease. On Wednesday, she said, as she inched ahead of seven other women, stroke by stroke, into the clear, she kept repeating in her head the names of the men with whom she trains at the University of Florida. "Just thinking of all the practices that we’ve done," Ledecky explained, "and all the confidence I get from being next to them."
After her bronze in the 400 on Saturday, she teared up when asked about them.
“That's why I love this sport,” she said, her voice cracking. “Because I get to spend every day with people like Bobby [Finke], and Kieran [Smith], my coaches, and everyone that believes in me, and pushes me.”
Such is her talent and endurance that she trains with some of the best male distance freestylers in the world at Florida. And yes, she hangs with them. Finke, when asked how much he typically beats Ledecky by in practice, said: “I mean, there's definitely times she's beaten me. It’s not much.”
So of course she eased ahead of the field Wednesday. Of course she won a race that she has not lost in 14 years, since she was a middle-schooler. Of course she was going to win an eighth Olympic gold, which brings her level with fellow American Jenny Thompson for the title of most decorated female swimmer ever.
The only question, and the source of doubt, was the number on the scoreboard.
The answer, when she saw it, delighted Ledecky. "I just wanted to swim a time that I could be really happy with," she said. "And that was one."
It was the eighth fastest time in history. Ledecky now owns all of the top 20. Kirpichnikova, the silver medalist, became the fourth-fastest woman in history — and was still more than 10 seconds back.
Katie Ledecky, at the longest of long pool distances, remains untouchable.
