Back in August 2016, when I posted some pictures of Olympic swimmer Janet Evans, I wrote that "she remains the standard any female distance swimmer worth her salt should and must aspire to."
Almost as soon as I'd published that post, that remark became irrelevant. And Katie Ledecky is the swimmer who made it so.
Born eight months after Janet Evans retired from competitive swimming, Katie Ledecky would grow up not only to become not only the greatest female distance swimmer ever but also one of the two greatest swimmers ever, the other being her fellow Marylander Michael Phelps.
At the 2012 London Olympics, Ms. Ledecky stunned her competitors and the world by winning the gold medal in the 800-meter women's freestyle race with a time of 8:14.63, which was the second-fastest time ever in the event, just behind the world record of 8:14.10 set in 2008 by Rebecca Adlington of Great Britain, whom she'd just defeated for the gold. At the same time, she broke Janet Evans' American record of 8:16.22 that had stood since 1989. Ms. Ledecky then went on to set the world record in the 800-meter freestyle with a time of 8:13.86. At the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona, Ms. Ledecky won the 400-meter freestyle, 800-meter freestyle, 1500-meter freestyle 4×200-meter freestyle relay, and she repeated all four victories at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan, Russia.
The year 2016 brought Ms. Ledecky some of her greatest victories, in which she won the 800-meter freestyle race at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics and broke her own world record for the fourth time since 2013. She established herself as a competitor who could set a new record in the qualifier and break it in the finals. Oh yeah, she also one three other freestyle races - the 200, the 400 and 4x200 relay - at that same Olympiad.
She's even accomplished what Janet Evans has once done - swim so far ahead of the competition that she's be going one way in the pool whole everyone else was gong the other way!
At the Tokyo Olympics, Ms. Ledecky not only won the 800 free again, she won the inaugural women's 1500-meter Olympic freestyle race - a kilometer and a half being a distance comparable to a mile. And Katie Ledecky is not done yet. She plans to compete at the Paris Olympics in 2024.
She's not only better than Janet Evans, she's also just as cute - but taller.
And what does Mademoiselle Evans think of being dethroned as the queen of distance swimming?
As you can see, she's very happy about it. 😊
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