The Katie Ledecky Page -- May 18, 2019

Updates

Later, 3:40 p.m. CDT: no world record in the 400-meter freestyle. Took first. Now has the ten fastest times in the history of the event, all under four minutes. Her record: 3:56.46; most recent, 3:57.94. She came back to finish fifth in the 100 freestyle in 54.56.

Original Post

This video is 17 minutes long. We talked about this earlier. See this post. Katie Ledecky set another world's record in this 1500-meter freestyle race. She beat her "old" record by five seconds. But the big story is this: in many of the wide shots, Katie Ledecky is the only swimmer seen and in almost every lap after the first three or laps, she is swimming "east" when most of the others are swimming "west." Anyone swimming in the same direction as Katie is actually two pool lengths behind Katie.

She came in first, beating #2 by almost a full minute (actual: 50 seconds). She wins by such a large margin, sports writers can write their column while waiting for #2 to touch the "finish line." The other story: she got faster as the race was coming down to the last laps.



Video and story at this link.

For those who never get tired of watching or reading about Katie Ledecky, here are the three top current stories about Katie:

• The Washington Post
• TeamUSA.org
• The Baltmore Sun

With this race:

• the previous 1500-meter freestyle record (Ledecky's) was set in 2015
• with this race: 8 of the 11 fastest 1500-meter freestyle times in history
• first to break the 15:30 time for this race; this is the fourth time she has done that 

If the video is too long for you to watch, start at the 11:05 mark.

After she touches the "finish line," you have time to get yourself another cup of coffee before #2 finishes.

It appeared she was trying to break the 15:20 mark. Her time: 15:20.48.

Reporter to Katie Ledecky after the race: "You need to cut one-half second off your time to come in under 15:20."

"Here, hold my Coke," Katie Ledecky was heard to respond.