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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 and gold No. 8.
She sailed to victory in the 1500-meter freestyle, finishing in an Olympic record 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).
The 12 medals ties her with fellow Americans Jenny Thompson, Dara Torres and Natalie Coughlin as the most decorated female swimmers in Olympic history. The gold ties her with Thompson for most ever for a female swimmer. And she still has two more swims at these Olympics.
She won medal No. 12 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 events is.
That it felt that way is a credit to Ledecky’s 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 make Ledecky one-of-a-kind.
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.
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.”
After her bronze medal in the 400-meter freestyle Saturday night, she teared up when asked about her teammates and coaches at the University of Florida.
“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.
At the longest of long pool distances, Katie Ledecky remains untouchable.
