Omaha, Nebraska: The summer of Katie Ledecky arrived with a roar, a close brush with history and, in the end, a sidekick.
Halfway through Monday night’s final of the women’s 400-metre freestyle at the US Olympic swimming trials, Ledecky was more than two seconds under her own world record pace. A sellout crowd of around 14,500 at CenturyLink Centre, fully aware of what it was witnessing, was on its feet and screaming to push her on.
A late fade prevented Ledecky from another record swim, and the 19-year-old phenomenon from Bethesda, Maryland, had to settle – though that is not exactly the right word – for first place, a guaranteed spot on the US team at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and a time, 3:58.98, that ranks fastest in the world this year and the third-fastest of all-time.
And ultimately, it wasn’t the crowd pushing Ledecky on as much as it was the swimmer in lane five. Leah Smith, a 21-year-old out from the University of Virginia, chased Ledecky the entire way – gaining instead of fading at the end – in a manner no one in the world has done since perhaps the 2013 World Championships.
In a way, the story of the night was Smith – whose 4:00.65 makes her the third-fastest performer of all-time in the event – even more than it was Ledecky, whose dominance has come to be expected in a race for which she holds eight of the top nine times in history.
Smith owns the second-fastest time in the world for 2016, and the gap between her and third-place Bolgarka Kapas of Hungary is nearly three seconds.
“Awesome,” Ledecky said when asked about Smith’s race. “I’m probably more pumped about her race than mine. She pushed me today. ... I think we’re really going to represent the US well in that event.”
But as an opening statement for what is sure to be a summer of fast swimming and medals, Ledecky’s race Monday night was plenty good. Ever since she burst on the scene with a shocking win in the 800 free at the 2012 London Games, she has been pointed toward this summer, with her eye on sweeping the 200, 400 and 800 freestyles – same as she did at the 2015 World Championships, adding a win in the 1,500 free, which is not an Olympic event – and perhaps adding an additional relay medal or two.
As she prepared to launch herself into her summer’s mission, Ledecky was edgy and wired. After scratching out of the 400-metre individual medley on Sunday – an event for which she had a trials-qualifying time, but not an event for which she trains seriously – she stuck around the pool anyway, watching some of her friends’ races but feeling like a caged animal.
She slept poorly Sunday night, whiffed on her attempt at a nap in between morning preliminaries and evening finals on Monday – “I eventually turned the TV on and tried to distract myself as best I could,” she said – then took herself out too fast in the front half of Monday night’s final.
“You watch the race unfold, and you certainly have thoughts – maybe that’s too fast, that’s too hard,” said Bruce Gemmell, Ledecky’s coach. “I didn’t think it was disastrous. Let’s not get carried away. It’s not like she fell apart and went from first to sixth [over] the last 50. It was a dress rehearsal from Rio.”
Ledecky said she spent the final 150 metres of the race telling herself, “Rio! Rio! Rio! C’mon!” and willing herself, with Smith right on her heels, to the wall.
“I tried to keep myself fired up like that,” she said. “I didn’t really care what the time was, but I am really happy [with it]. I haven’t been [under 3:59] in two years. I think that’s a good sign going forward.”
More than seven months ago, Ledecky breezed to a little-remembered victory in the 400 free at the Arena Pro Swim Series stop in Minneapolis – and also little-remembered was the fact the runner-up touched the wall within two seconds of her. But that runner-up remembers the details of that race vividly. It was Smith, and the fact she had kept pace, more or less, with the greatest female distance swimmer in the world – if not in history – stayed with her.
