KAZAN, Russia — For her penultimate swim of the FINA World Championships, Katie Ledecky, the 18-year-old Bethesda native and the sport’s resident phenomenon, delivered a performance that, in its own way, was as remarkable as any she has produced during this meet.
In the preliminary heats of the women’s 800-meter freestyle Friday, she looked decidedly and unapologetically human.
[Notice to U.S.: Laszlo Cseh has a blistering 100 fly in prelims]
For any actual mortal — which is to say any competitor besides herself — Ledecky’s winning time of 8:19.42 would have represented an unfathomably fast race. Only one other swimmer in the world had gone faster than that in the past 24 months.
But for Ledecky, who has spent the past five days at Kazan Arena rewriting the record book, that time represented an off-day, the swimming equivalent of a stroll in the park. It performed its minimum function — to win the qualifying heats and give her the top spot in Saturday’s night finals — but little else.
[Ledecky’s “unprecedented” dominance]
“I wasn’t really focusing on a time or anything,” said Ledecky, the world record-holder in the event, at 8:11.00. “I dove in, started out and knew it wasn’t going to be anything special, so I just kind of went through it. I just needed to get a good spot for the finals tomorrow.”
No one could blame Ledecky for easing up Friday. By this point in the meet, he said swam 4,600 competitive meters, earned four gold medals, set a pair of world records (both in the 1,500 free) and pulled off a stunning 1,500/200 “double” with less than 30 minutes in between — the first half of which produced a world record, and the second half a blistering final lap that narrowly advanced her out of the semifinals of the 200.
She insisted after Friday’s 800 prelims that she wasn’t tired, or still feeling the after-effects of Tuesday’s double. “That’s long gone,” she said. “That feels like years ago.”
[Katie Ledecky, Ryan Lochte hand U.S. first double-gold night at worlds]
Still, it was almost unsettling to see Ledecky struggle to shake her closest pursuers down the stretch of a major international distance race. No one in the world-class field had been within 10 seconds of her all year in the 800, but as the swimmers hit the final lap, both Denmark’s Lotte Friis and New Zealand’s Lauren Boyle were within one and a half lengths of her.
“I could feel them coming,” Ledecky acknowledged.
Ledecky’s time Friday marked her slowest in the event since the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials, when she was 15 years old. Of course, after that showing, her next try at that distance produced the crowning moment of her career to this point: a gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics, which catapulted her into the world swimming community’s consciousness.
With the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics now less than a year away, Ledecky faces one last swim here, Saturday’s 800 free finals, before heading home and turning her sights towards Rio.
And it is a safe bet she will not be holding anything back. At stake is not only a fifth gold medal, but an unprecedented sweep of the 200, 400, 800 and 1,500 freestyles.
“I always like to finish on a good note and finish the season well and come away with a good feeling,” she said, “so hopefully I can put together something good.”