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The Katie Ledecky-led U.S. team struck gold in the women’s 4x200 freestyle relay. So what else is new? Since the event became a part of the Olympic program in 1996, the Americans have won five of the six golds.
Ledecky anchored a squad that included Allison Schmitt, Leah Smith and Maya DiRado to a 1.84-second victory over Australia, the only other country to triumph in the event at the Summer Games. Canada was third. The Americans were trailing by 89-hundredths of a second when Ledecky hit the water. She split 1 minute 53.74 seconds, to stop the clock at 7:43.03.
Ledecky’s split of 1:53.74 was nine-tenths of a second faster than anyone else’s. Photo/The New York Times
The Americans’ performance may have been a victory for the status quo, but the U.S. relay served as a reminder of how the only constant from one Olympics to the next is change.
Counting her relay swim, Ledecky has raced eight times in the first five days and covered 1,800 meters. At the London Games four years ago, she did not race for the first time until Day 6.
“I did kind of think back a couple of days ago that I don’t think I was thinking in London that I would be swimming all this in Rio,” Ledecky said. “It’s crazy how fast things can happen and how much the hard work can pay off.”
In London, Missy Franklin counted the 4x200 freestyle relay as one of the four gold medals in her five-medal haul. Four years later, she swam in the preliminaries and did not break 1:57. And so it was that Franklin was left off the relay at night.
Filling the role of America’s can-do kid at these Games is the 19-year-old Ledecky. The youngest member of the U.S. swimming squad for the second straight Games, she seems unflinching, undeterred, unstoppable. Ledecky already has three golds and a relay silver and her best event, the 800-meter freestyle, is up next.
Ledecky, Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu and Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom have emerged as the stars on the women’s side at Olympic Aquatics Stadium, and all three were in the relay final, but only Ledecky and Hosszu went head to head. Sjostrom swam the third leg for Sweden, which was seeking to medal in the event for the first time.
(THE NEW YORK TIMES)
