Katie Ledecky lay flat on her back in the Olympic pool, pain still written on her face, trying to suck the air back into her lungs as fast as she could manage. The crowd were going wild on all four sides of the arena and yet for a few moments she simply stared at the roof, at the cameras and the scaffolding and the lights. For Ledecky, the pool has always been her freedom and her safety. It was as if she was enjoying one last moment of alone time.
Then, as smoothly as a tumble turn, she flipped upright, smiled into the galleries and waggled four fingers at the crowd. Until this point, only Michael Phelps had ever won four gold medals in the same event. The event that started it all, back in London when she was only 15 years old, when everyone was expecting a Rebecca Adlington coronation and nobody noticed the kid from Bethesda, Maryland, who would ultimately destroy them all.
It was her ninth individual Olympic gold in total, tying Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina as the most decorated female Olympian of all time. And yet the warm embrace she shared with Ariarne Titmus of Australia after the race was a testament to the epic duel they had just shared. This was the closest of Ledecky’s 800m free finals, as Titmus pushed her and kept pushing, staying in touch without ever threatening to get the final touch.
This, perhaps, stands as a pretty good metaphor for their rivalry in this event. Titmus, who would set a new national record here, improved her time from Tokyo by 1.5 seconds. Bad news: so did Ledecky. Just when you think you have her in your grasp, she kicks and she strokes and is elusive again. You may as well try to catch time itself.
It had already been another scintillating night in the pool. At the start of the evening Kristof Milak won gold for Hungary in the men’s 100m butterfly. Later the United States would swim a world record to pip China to gold in the mixed 4x100m medley relay, with Leon Marchand’s French quartet finishing just out of the medals and defending champions Great Britain down in seventh.
The peerless Sarah Sjöström set a new Olympic record of 23.66 seconds – also the third-fastest time in history – in the semi-finals of the women’s 50m freestyle. Summer McIntosh won her third gold of these Games in the women’s 200m individual medley, thrillingly chasing down Kate Douglass of the United States in the final 10 metres.
And then lights out. Game time. In went Ledecky, palm perfectly over palm, not so much hitting the water as folding into it, becoming it. She hit the front and turned fastest, but Titmus stayed with her. For the first four or five lengths, swum at below world-record pace, only a couple of feet separated them. Ledecky was breathing to her right, Titmus to her left, so on the return lengths they could look straight into each other’s eyes and see how close they were. By this point, the other six swimmers might as well have been in the pub.
The pace began to slow from about 300 metres, and though Titmus was still there, she was kicking harder, visibly expending more effort to keep up. At 550 metres, Ledecky began to move forward. By 650 metres, the lead was out to a second, a full body length. Titmus was briefly in danger of being caught by Paige Madden of the United States, who had made a late surge and was threatening second place.
But Titmus kicked for home and – bad news – so did Ledecky. In her memoir Just Add Water, Ledecky remembers seeing a wire article from the 2016 Olympics with the headline “Michael Phelps ties for silver in 100 fly”. Just underneath, in tiny print, it added: “Ledecky sets world record in women’s 800 freestyle.” And if Ledecky has established any kind of legacy beyond the precious metal and the carpet-bombing of the record lists, it is to insist – through her own relentless brilliance – that great female swimmers take top billing.
Not that she is necessarily done just yet. The next Olympics will take place on home water in Los Angeles, and we are reminded how Ledecky compares swimming with Hotel California: you can check out, but you can never leave. Even so, she will be 31 in 2028, and well aware that there are younger rivals coming to get her.
Earlier this year McIntosh beat her in a Florida meet, her first defeat in 13 years, and had she chosen to swim the distance here, it could have been a tussle for the ages. Titmus, too, will surely develop and improve. For now, though, Ledecky reigns queen of all she surveys.
