MESA, Ariz. – The stands were mostly empty for the first race of the first night of the Arena Pro Swim Series meet Wednesday, and the polite smattering of applause that greeted Katie Ledecky’s win in the women’s 1,500-meter freestyle spoke to the sky-high expectations that greet her every race these days. No world record? Yawn.
The small crowd, though, may not have realized it had just witnessed the fifth-best time in the history in the event, as Ledecky, the three-time All-Met Girls’ Swimmer of the Year, won easily with a time of 15 minutes 42.23 seconds.
Ledecky, too, seemed unimpressed with her race, especially given the progress she said she has been making in training — including a stint training at altitude at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. She showed no emotion after touching the wall, as she waited for the other swimmers — most of whom she had lapped — to finish.
“Honestly, there wasn’t much ‘pop’ tonight,” she said.
Since the 1,500 is not contested in the Olympics, Ledecky said it “won’t be a huge priority” for the rest of her year, but since the Mesa meet added the event on the meet’s first night, she decided to enter it as an ice-breaker for the rest of the meet.
“It was really good to swim it,” she said. “It shook the cobwebs off and got a jump on the rest of the meet.”
Ledecky, an 18-year-old from Bethesda, holds four of the top five times in history in the 1,500, including the world record of 15:28.36, set last August. Her time Wednesday — on the first day of the four-day meet – pushed Kate Ziegler, a former world-record holder in the event and a two-time All-Met Swimmer of the Year, out of the top five all-time.
Bruce Gemmell, Ledecky’s coach with the Nation’s Capital Swim Club, said Ledecky’s swim was “solid” considering she hadn’t swum a long-course race in three months.
“She hasn’t raced in a while,” Gemmell said. “So as far as that goes, it was a solid swim for her. I don’t think there were any expectations of doing something fantastic. It takes her awhile [after not racing] to get her pacing back.”
With top-draw Michael Phelps not swimming until Thursday, the crowds for the meet’s first night were sparse and subdued. Only one of the other seven swimmers in the women’s 1,500 — Kristel Kobrich, a three-time Olympian from Chile — was within 30 seconds of Ledecky’s seed time.
Ledecky led Kobrich by two lengths after the first 100 meters, by 30 meters at the race’s halfway point and by a full 50-meter length of the pool after 1,150 meters. Ledecky kept her lap-split times mostly steady throughout the race, rather than focusing on the front or back half.
Ledecky is entered in five more events in the Mesa meet – the 100, 200, 400 and 800 freestyles and the 400 individual medley.
Bryan Flaherty contributed to this report.