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MINNEAPOLIS — If you’ve only seen Katie Ledecky on television, or in person at a major international event, you have almost certainly never seen this: the 18-year-old freestyle champion knifing through the water on her back, or making a two-handed turn at the end of a breaststroke lap, or propelling herself forward with her powerful shoulders in the butterfly — and more or less keeping pace with some of the best swimmers in the country in each stroke.
To see Ledecky swim the 400-meter individual medley— an event she enters only occasionally, and mostly for “fun” (her idea of fun being different than that of most mortals) — is to be struck with a revelation, as folks on the pool deck Thursday were.
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As Ledecky wrapped up a swim of 4 minutes 39.18 seconds in the finals of the 400 IM Thursday night in the Arena Pro Swim Series meet at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center — a time that bettered her personal best by 2½ seconds and that ranked sixth in the U.S. this year — a rival coach sidled up to Bruce Gemmell, Ledecky’s coach, and said, “There’s nothing she can’t do, is there?” Gemmell merely shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
The Minneapolis meet, which opens the pro series, marked the unofficial start of the 2015-16 swim season, culminating, of course, in the Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics next August. As such, it was the perfect place and time to take stock of Ledecky’s remarkable rise over the past four years — from a virtual unknown before her gold-medal-winning swim in the 800-meter freestyle at the 2012 London Games, to the most dominant freestyler in the world following her five-gold-medal performance at the 2015 World Championships — and to look ahead to Rio and beyond.
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“At this time in 2011, I had never even swum at a national-level event like this before,” said Ledecky, a Bethesda native who has deferred her enrollment at Stanford until after Rio, so she can continue training with Gemmell. “I’m definitely at a better starting point now, with a lot more experience, and I know what to expect when I come to meets like this. It’s the first long-course meet of the season — the first marker, just sort of a launching point into the rest of year. I can learn a lot from what I see or how I feel here.”
Gone are the days when Ledecky could blend into the packs of swimmers chatting in the warmup area before meets. When she walks into an arena now, heads turn. Camera phones emerge from pockets. The air changes. If her gold medal in London, as a 15-year-old rookie, made her a rising star in the sport, what she has done since — particularly the world championships in August in Kazan, Russia, where she pulled off an unprecedented sweep of the 200, 400, 800 and 1,500 freestyles, with three world records thrown in for good measure — has made her the sport’s most dominant figure.
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“I guess it’s a little different,” she said. “Yeah, I can see some people looking at me a little differently. Or when I walk by younger swimmers, they ask me for a picture or an autograph. But in my mind, I still have the same mentality I had in 2011 or 2012. There’s still a lot of things that motivate me, and I still have a lot of big goals for next year.”
Not surprisingly, as an Olympic season gets underway, the Minneapolis meet drew an impressive field. Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all-time, was there to build on his stunning resurgence at U.S. Nationals three months ago, where he posted worlds-best times in the 100 and 200 butterflys and the 200 IM. Missy Franklin, who won four golds in London, was there as well, and she and Ledecky dueled Thursday night in the 200 freestyle, with Ledecky winning by a comfortable margin of 1.36 seconds.
Her sizzling time of 1:55.37 — just a hair off her gold-medal-winning time in Kazan of 1:55.16 — was both a surprise, coming at a point when swimmers are just beginning to ramp up their training regimens, and perhaps a statement.
“I’m very happy with where I am right now,” she said afterwards.
Every swimmer has to come to grips with the question of quality versus quantity, determining how far they can expand their meet programs — and thus their possibilities for additional routes to the medal stand — without compromising their core events. But that question carries even more weight for Ledecky, because what is at stake is a potentially historic gold-medal haul at Rio and a soaring legacy.
There is no realistic path for Ledecky to match Phelps’s record of eight golds at the 2008 Beijing Games, but in part because the 1,500 free isn’t contested for women at the Olympics, Ledecky has shifted her focus towards the shorter freestyle events in order to expand her possibilities. Her win in the 200 at Kazan made her a gold medal favorite in the event at Rio, and she has begun taking aim at the 100 as well, giving her a potential route to a relay medal, at the very least. With her 200, 400 and 800 freestyles, plus the 4×200 and 4×100 freestyle relays, that could put Ledecky in line for five golds.
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“The 100 just kind of comes along for the ride with the 200,” she said, “and if I can improve in the 100, I know it will help my 200.”
But the 400 IM remains out there as an even more intriguing possibility for Ledecky — if not for Rio, then potentially for Tokyo in 2020 — with her immense ability in the freestyle making her a frighteningly efficient closer.
“If she ever put her mind to it,” USA Swimming National Team Director Frank Busch said of the possibility of Ledecky in the 400 IM, “it would really be something to see.”
In Thursday night’s finals, Ledecky was a distant fourth at the end of the breaststroke leg, but started chasing down the trio ahead of her as soon as she shifted into freestyle. Her sizzling split of 59.94 seconds in the freestyle was not only the fastest in the field of seven women – by more than a full second – it was faster than any of the eight swimmers in the [italics] men’s [end italics] 400 IM final that followed.
By the end, Ledecky had passed one rival and had made up some 4 ½ seconds on second-place finisher Caitlin Leverenz, a 2012 Olympian in the event, finishing just .08 seconds behind her, in third place. Becca Mann, 17, won the event at 4:37.04. Ledecky was a little more than two seconds back, at 4:39.18.
Reading too much into times at the beginning of a season is generally unwise, but in Ledecky’s case her showing Thursday night at least begs the question: Could she enter the 400 IM at the U.S. Olympic Trials in June and take a run at earning one of two spots on the Olympic team?
Gemmell put the chances at “50-50.” At the very least, the Olympic Trials schedule is conducive to it.
As it happens, the 400 IM will be contested on the first day of the eight-day Trials, and Ledecky has no other events that day – giving her an easy means of getting the first-swim jitters out of the way before she arrives at her core events.
But Ledecky said if she entered the 400 IM, she would probably swim it only in the morning preliminary heats – which means, if she made it into the evening finals, she would probably scratch. The numbers are still against her: she would need to shave another four seconds or so from her personal best time if she wanted to make a serious run at an Olympic berth.
“I don’t think I could make the team in it right now,” she said.
That could change, of course, if she ever devoted herself to the race. Although Gemmell has Ledecky swim every stroke at some point during each week of training, it’s more a function of working different muscle groups and keeping the workouts from getting monotonous. Asked how much focus they put on actually training for IMs, he said, “Very little.”
“You’d have to take away from something else” by training for a medley, Gemmell said. “You can’t just keep adding more events.”
The 400 IM is a grueling race that taxes a swimmer in ways even the 1,500 freestyle doesn’t, and Ledecky acknowledged the toll it takes on her body. “It hurts afterward,” she said. But she also said she has always loved the event and has long admired the swimmers who specialize in it.
She can envision a day when she gets serious about the 400 IM, but that day probably won’t come next summer.
“We’ll see how it comes along over the year, but I’m not putting much training into it,” she said. “Maybe in five years.”
Five years would be 2020, the year of the Tokyo Summer Games. So for all the swimmers in the women’s 400 IM: there’s your timeframe. Enjoy your event, free of the threat of the best swimmer in the world taking it over, while you still can.