I love the pool! I love being in the water! I think, whenever I'm not in the water, I want to be in the water, and it's very difficult for me to take breaks.
Presidential Medal of Freedom
Katie Ledecky learned to swim at her community pool in Bethesda, Maryland. Her mother — a former freestyler at the University of New Mexico — started her off with simple games. Both she and her brother took to swimming immediately. Although she was never pressured to compete, by the time Katie was six years old, she was racing for a team, the Palisades Porpoises. Katie swam well and enjoyed setting ambitious goals, but it was not yet apparent that she would end up an Olympian, let alone one of swimming’s all-time greats.
Even as she led a normal, engaged life outside of the sport, Katie continued to compete in swimming. Before she entered high school, she was waking at 4 a.m. for practice at the Nation’s Capital Swim Club in Washington, D.C. By 14, it was clear – at least to her and her coach Yuri Suguiyama – that Katie could become a world-class swimmer. At a goal-setting meeting before an Olympic qualifying event – her first national competition at the adult level – Suguiyama pushed her to say what the ideal outcome would be. She whispered, and he had to ask her to speak up, but saying it aloud made the possibility real for her: to make it to the Olympics.
Nine months later, the now-15-year-old high schooler had not just made it – she won gold in the 800-meter freestyle in the 2012 London Games. She was the youngest American competitor in the entire Games and shocked the world by achieving the second-fastest score in the event’s history: 8:14.63. No one, not even her parents, had thought it was possible. Although Katie quietly hoped for victory, she also remained level-headed. “I believed if I finished last, I would be okay,” she said. “I was at my very first Olympics, and there was another one in four years. It was all just a learning experience.” This calm self-mastery would come to make the rest of her career possible.
Although Ledecky didn’t expect the success to continue, she kept up the ambitious goal-setting that Suguiyama had taught her. In the process, she transformed distance swimming. At the 2015 World Championships in Kazan, she swept the 400m, 800m, and 1500m events, setting world records in each. By her own telling, this wasn’t entirely on purpose – swimmers are supposed to conserve their energy during preliminary rounds. But as she swam at what felt like an easy pace, she glanced at the clock and realized she was maintaining a record-breaking pace. So she continued, finished at historic times, and reassured her coach she wasn’t risking exhaustion.
Despite her unprecedented prowess and growing international fame, Ledecky was determined to remain a normal high school student. “I never wanted school to take a back seat to swimming,” she says. Her sophomore year began after the summer she burst onto the scene in London. While her classmates and teachers knew what she’d accomplished, they didn’t treat her any differently.
Still, during those formative high school years, Ledecky practiced a self-discipline that set her apart from her peers: homework had to be done well in advance so she could compete, and the late nights and careless diets of other teenagers were, by her resolution, off-limits – she had records to break. She credits this fortitude to the example of her older brother, Michael, a fellow athlete who showed her how to take academic performance seriously while still excelling in a demanding sport. “I learned a lot of those things probably ahead of some of my peers,” she says.
She stayed ahead of her peers in other ways: Rio 2016 confirmed her dominance in international swimming, with world-record-setting gold medals in the 200- and 800-meter freestyles, as well as two more golds in the 400-meter freestyle and the 200-meter freestyle relay, and a silver in the 100-meter relay. Now a student at Stanford University, Ledecky maintained the commitment to education that she learned in high school. Throughout a now-unsurprisingly successful college athletic career, she earned a degree in psychology with a minor in political science. She maintained a nearly perfect GPA while winning nine NCAA titles.
Ledecky’s nearly perfect GPA didn’t get in the way of an eventual nine NCAA titles won, as usual, in record time. In 2017, her freshman year, she broke the American record for the 500-meter freestyle, then defended her victory the following year. Over those two championships, she dominated both individually in events like the grueling 1,650-meter and in team relays. Not long after the 2018 Championship, she was named Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year and became the second freshman and first swimmer in 14 years to receive the Honda Cup.
In 2018, Ledecky announced that she had concluded her college swimming career. She’d continue as a student at Stanford, but swim professionally. She signed a deal with TYR, which the swim gear company called “the most lucrative partnership in swim history,” and continued to prepare for her third Olympic Games.
Those Games came later than expected – the COVID-19 pandemic not only pushed Tokyo 2020 into 2021 but also moved her graduation online, and – perhaps most importantly – made it impossible for Ledecky to train properly. Still, when the postponed Games came around, she earned yet two more freestyle golds (setting a record with her 1500-meter debut) and two silvers in solo and relay freestyle events.
Although Ledecky appears to perform effortlessly in competition, she has had to manage medical challenges. In 2015, she was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a blood-pressure condition that can lead to fainting.
Ledecky disclosed this news only in her 2024 memoir,Just Add Water – but although she needs to pay special attention to hydration and salt intake, her struggle with the disease has seemed as effortless as her seemingly endless victories. It also has helped that staying horizontal, as swimming requires, is an effective safeguard against POTS symptoms.
In Fukuoka 2023, she collected her sixth straight world title in the 800 and her 16th individual world crown overall, surpassing Michael Phelps for the most in history.
Paris 2024 brought more milestones: gold in the 1500m, a record-setting fourth consecutive Olympic gold in the 800m, silver in the relay, and bronze in the 400m. With a total of 14 Olympic medals – nine of which were gold – she had become the most decorated female swimmer and most decorated American woman in the history of the competition.
In May 2024, Joe Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, for her being “a symbol of perseverance and strength, with a heart of gold, that shines for the nation and the world.” She was the first swimmer to be recognized.
Ledecky likes to be good. Her “Dive into STEM” curriculum, created with Panasonic, has reached classrooms nationwide, and Athletes for Hope honored her as its 2022 Community Hero. The non-profit, which helps high-profile athletes pursue philanthropic projects, now counts her as one of its four members on the Athletic Leadership Council.
In June 2025, Ledecky returned to Stanford to deliver the commencement address at the university’s 134th graduation ceremony. Speaking to a crowd of more than 21,000, she reflected on her time as a student-athlete and shared the lessons that had guided her. She encouraged graduates to “take the lead,” even when it felt uncomfortable, and spoke about the value of listening to mentors while also learning to trust yourself. Her speech, warm and direct, included stories from her years on campus, thanks to her coaches and teammates, and a heartfelt message to her father, delivered on Father’s Day. “Go fast when you need to go fast,” she told the class—a piece of swimming advice that, like much of her speech, doubled as a broader message about life.
In July 2025 at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, Ledecky added to her astonishing legacy with two more gold medals — in the 800-meter and 1500-meter freestyle. The 1500 was especially emotional, as she reflected: “I love this race. It was the race I broke my first world record in 2013.” She finished with the fifth-fastest time ever — and now owns 25 of the top 26 in the event. The 1500 win brought her 22nd world championship gold and 28th medal overall, alongside her nine Olympic golds and 14 total Olympic medals. With 42 Olympic and world medals — 31 of them gold — she remains the most decorated female swimmer in history. She also earned a bronze in the 400m freestyle, continuing to podium across events more than a decade into her career. Now, as her fifth Olympics approach, Katie Ledecky continues her preparations, readying herself to remake the sport of swimming yet again.
- Career
- Date of Birth
- March 17, 1997
Katie Ledecky rules the lanes. She began swimming competitively at the age of six and hasn’t stopped since, accumulating years of unmatched discipline and game-changing technique. At fifteen, she made her debut at the 2012 London Olympics, winning gold in the 800-meter freestyle, shocking the world and coming close to the record before anyone had even heard of her. Greatness awaited her, which she pursued alongside her life as a typical Maryland high schooler.
Many records would soon be broken. She swept the 400, 800, and 1,500 meters at the 2015 World Championships, achieving record times almost by accident. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, she lowered the world records in the 400 and 800 meters while winning four gold medals. Despite a blood pressure disorder that can make exertion difficult, Ledecky seems unconstrained by her body. Time similarly appears to have little power over her: while dominating the NCAA and then the world circuit as a college student, she maintained a nearly perfect GPA. More than a decade after her first Olympic appearance, she still holds her place as the reigning queen of the sport.
After winning four medals at the 2024 Paris Games, Ledecky became the most decorated female swimmer in history, with more Olympic titles than any other American woman. Continuing this excellence at the 2028 Games will surpass what has ever been achieved in competitive swimming. Then again, Katie Ledecky has never been restricted by precedent.
Presidential Medal of Freedom
Does your body crave the pool?
Katie Ledecky: Yes, I love the pool! I love being in the water! I think, whenever I’m not in the water, I want to be in the water, and it’s very difficult for me to take breaks. So, even after a big Olympics where I know that I need to take a little bit of a break afterwards and reset after all that hard training, I start to get the itch to get back in the water, probably within about a week. And yeah, the water calls me back.
Have you found it difficult to take time off for recovery when a coach has advised it?
Katie Ledecky: I know it’s good to take breaks, but I also know how difficult it is to get back in shape and get your feel back for the water. So, even just a month off or three weeks off, you basically have to start from zero in the sport of swimming, I think that’s something that separates our sports, our sport from a lot of other sports. Just that feel for the water, the rhythm that you have with your stroke, your technique, all of those things you have to regain after a break. So, that’s why I don’t like taking long breaks, because it takes even longer to get back to the level I like to be at.
What is your first memory of being in the water?
Katie Ledecky: My first memories of being in the water are with my mom. She taught my brother and me how to feel comfortable in the water. We would play a lot of games like Marco Polo or just blowing bubbles and kind of playing water tag, I guess, just swimming in between each other, things like that. So, those are my first memories. And then soon after that, I joined a summer league swim team with my brother, the Palisades Porpoises in Maryland, so in the Montgomery County Swim League. So that was when I first started learning the strokes and competing for a team.
I started swimming for Palisades when I was six, and started competing when I was six for the summer league team. And after that first summer of swimming, my brother and I, we both loved it so much that we wanted to start swimming year-round, and we started with a year-round team that fall after the summer. And played other sports as well, but probably by the age of 11 or 12, I started choosing swim practice over basketball and soccer, and all my other activities, and swimming became my main extracurricular activity.
I don’t think either of my parents really recognized that I had special skills in the water. I think they recognized that I loved the sport, and that I was passionate about the sport, and that I enjoyed setting goals for myself within swimming. And I mean, they probably did see me winning races and, you know, being faster than some of my teammates or competitors, but I don’t think at that age they saw me ever making it to the Olympics. I think we still saw that as such a far-fetched thing and something that was so hard to reach that there’s no way that that should even be something we discuss. They did a very good job of not pushing me in the sport, not forcing me to swim, even though my mom swam in college, she didn’t push the sport on my brother or me. We found our own love of it.
We’re very goal-oriented and enjoyed I think the individual nature of the sport, having personal control over your results, your work that you put in, you don’t have to rely on your teammate catching the ball or something like that, and so we enjoyed that. But then at the same time, we also enjoyed the team atmosphere of swimming, the training with teammates, pushing each other, having fun with each other on the pool deck or in practice at swim meets. So, I think we both loved those two aspects of the sport and that’s what drew us to continue for so many years.
Was it challenging to balance swimming, school, and your other interests?
Katie Ledecky: I definitely learned how to balance swimming in school and I never wanted school to take a backseat to swimming. I think sometimes you see athletes at a young age just focus on the sport, and maybe they stop going to school or turn professional at a young age or something like that, but it’s just always been such an important value in our family, education, and pursuing learning and pursuing your passions in school. So, I had such a great role model for that with my older brother Michael, and he really just set a great example in terms of how to work hard in school, and you could still work hard at practice. And yes, you’re going to be tired sometimes, but you can put in the work. You can manage things. You can balance things. You can look ahead on what work you have coming up. And so, I kind of followed his lead and learned a lot of those things, probably ahead of some of my peers, some of my classmates, some of my teammates, because I had such a great example in my, in my older brother. So, I’m grateful for that. And I think I have learned so much through the sport of swimming, but also so much through that balancing act of balancing swimming and school and all of my other interests on the side as well.
So, growing up, I played basketball, I played soccer, I did Irish dancing for a little bit. I did — I sang in the school choir from, I think, 4th grade to 7th or 8th grade. I was very involved in my high school with some service activities and other things. So, it was never solely swimming in school growing up. I wanted to be fully involved in my communities and I felt like that was important to my swimming success and something that I wanted to do. I wanted to do these other activities with my classmates, with my teammates, and be involved in as much as I, as much as I could, while still being able to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. Four in the morning, I would have to get up for swim practice and swim from 5:00 or 4:45 to 6:30, and then go to school, then go right from school to afternoon practice often times. And I say that, but it wasn’t just me that was doing that. It was my parents, they had to come up with a schedule that worked for them in terms of driving, driving us around to our practices. By the time we were in high school, my brother and I were going to different high schools and we were swimming in different pools, so there was, there was a big juggling act there in terms of getting us to the right locations at the right time on time. And so you know, my parents have played such a big role in my journey.
Your book discusses the inspiration you’ve drawn from your grandparents. How have they influenced you?
Katie Ledecky: All four of my grandparents have inspired me throughout my life. I feel very lucky that I have had so many years with all of my grandparents. With my grandmothers, I’ve had more years than I did with my grandfathers. But all have very inspirational stories, and I felt like they were such an important part of my story, and that’s why I included them in the book, because I think they each have contributed values that I hold dearly in my life. They’ve all set such great examples for you know, hard work, dedication, building community, being involved in your community, serving your country, serving your family, serving your community. So, those are the things that I try to bring to my daily life. And whenever I do that, I think of my grandparents and I have strong connections with many of the people that they were friends with. And just through the sport of swimming, I feel like I have formed these new connections with them even though I only have one grandmother still alive. It’s been very special to share so many of these special moments in my life with my four grandparents.
I think there have been so many races at the Olympics or at World Championships that I’ve thought about my grandparents, even within the races. I swim the distance races, and so I do have a lot of time to think, and sometimes that’s something that is kind of a tool or a trick that I use, I think of my loved ones and for me, I feel like that just gives me such strength because my grandparents were, are, you know, they’re some of the strongest people that I know and I’m so close with. And so, just thinking of them, then I start thinking of my parents, I think of my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, all the people that I’ve had in my life supporting me, setting good examples, such strong people, strong individuals, and that really gives me strength and kind of lifts me up during my races, especially the hard ones.
What did coach Yuri Suguiyama mean to you in your early career?
Katie Ledecky: Yuri was my coach leading up to the London 2012 Olympics, and I was only 15 years old in London. So, if you go back, you know, he was coaching me from about age 11, 10 or 11 until 15. And when I was 14 years old, I really was starting to rise in the national rankings. I qualified for Olympic trials.
I think going into that first Olympic year that, that 2011-2012 season, I was maybe ranked 3rd or 4th in my top events and you have to be top two in the country at the trials to make the Olympic team. So, he sat me down at a goal setting meeting and we were talking through what we wanted to work on in training and he said to me, “Now Katie, what would be the ultimate goal at Olympic trials?” And I kind of was like, “Oh, I don’t know. I mean, what do you, what do you want? Like, I don’t know.” And he said, “Katie, what would be the ultimate goal at Olympic trials?” And I said [mumbles] kind of quietly, “Make the Olympic team?” He said, “OK, say it again.” And I said, “Make the Olympic team.” And he said, “OK, that’s, that’s the goal. We don’t have to talk about it with anyone else. It’s just between us and we don’t have to talk about it the rest of the year, but that’s what we’re working toward.”
And he basically was telling me that he believed in me. He believed that I could achieve that, that I was capable of that. And looking back on that, I think that gave me such confidence, such belief. That planted the seed for making the Olympic team and then ultimately winning the gold medal in London. We never talked about winning the gold medal, but I think once I got past that first hurdle of making the Olympic team, it was very easy for me to visualize myself winning the gold medal because I had built all this confidence up through Yuri’s belief in me, through all the hard work that we had both put into that year, and he just helped me believe that I belonged at that level, even as a young quiet, at times, 15-year-old who was competing at the international level for the very first time.
How did Yuri’s supervision of your training help you avoid injury?
Katie Ledecky: Yuri and really, all of my coaches have done such a great job of making sure that everything I do complements what I’m doing in the pool, supports what I’m doing in the pool in terms of staying healthy, both physically, mentally, emotionally, all those things. And definitely at a young age when Yuri was coaching me, he definitely made it a priority to make sure that I was swimming with proper technique, doing things out of the water in terms of dry land training that would keep my shoulders healthy, keep all of my muscles and body, you know, healthy and all of that. Because I think sometimes you see coaches pushing these really good young athletes too hard and to the point where they’re not able to have very long careers because of injury or illness or things like that. So, I’m very grateful for that and grateful that he didn’t push too hard. He knew exactly what I needed at that age. And he had the vision that I could have a long career, that I could achieve great things. And so, he didn’t say that to me, but he did things the right way that would allow for that to happen long term.
What strategies or exercises have you used to protect and strengthen your shoulders throughout your career?
Katie Ledecky: From a young age, it was just band exercises and just getting a little bit stronger in general because, you know, I think I was kind of lanky and I’m pretty tall, and I was pretty tall for my age, 13, 14 years old. I was still growing into my body really, so I think you just wanted to make sure that I was strong enough to handle the kind of training load that I was doing in the pool, what I was trying to accomplish. And so, yeah, I think just the little things like that. And then he didn’t want to add too much dry land or weight training too young, and so that really was great because that gave me areas to improve over the years, adding in some of those strength exercises after London, you know, to the point where I’m doing, you know, lifting, and then you kind of take that to the next level when you get to college and then professionally. So, really, he just laid the groundwork for me to improve in that area.
A new technique
Katie Ledecky: When I was 14, gearing up for the London Olympics or the Olympic Trials, we were trying to perfect my technique. And one day, when I was doing a swimming set, I started swimming with slightly different technique, and it kind of was sort of modeled after what Michael Phelps did with his freestyle stroke. And I started swimming with this different stroke, and when I did that, Yuri said, “That! That’s the stroke. Keep swimming like that.” And so we developed that, stuck with it. And really, I think it was it, it doesn’t look pretty all the time, and you know it, it just was very different I think than how a lot of other female distance swimmers were swimming at the time, and I think that definitely was a contributor to my early, early success and my ability to reach that next level in that Olympic year.
At first, I think people saw my technique and were just kind of surprised by it because they had never seen a female freestyler use that technique. And so, it often was compared to Michael Phelps’s technique or other male swimmers technique. So, it was kind of strange to me at first, but then I also recognized that they were, I think trying to just compliment me and compliment my stroke and how different it was and how unique it was, and so I didn’t take too much offense to it, but I did write in the book how, you know, some of those things are kind of strange to me at times.
And I think now in our sport, you know, I’d like for people to not use those comparisons because I think there’s so many great female swimmers right now. I have such great competition. And I’d like to think that I’ve shown how to swim differently and that other swimmers are using some of those technical strategies, those pacing strategies, kind of how I swim, some of my races. More of my competitors have tried to use some of those techniques. And so that has definitely pushed me and made them better and made our sport better I think.
Katie Ledecky: So, I used to kind of swing, I can’t even remember now because it was so long ago, it was either my right arm or my left arm. And basically, he was concerned that my shoulder could hurt down the road from this technique. It’s not a good technique to swim with a straight arm, especially in the distance races that I swim. So, he really hammered at home that I’ve got to bend my elbow in my stroke. And one day, he said to me like, “Katie,” like, “don’t come crying to me in 10 years if your shoulder is ruined. And I know that, like, I remember that so vividly thinking, “Oh, geez, like, I better, I better fix this,” because I don’t want to have to tell, tell Yuri that my shoulder hurts. And again, I think that was another way of him subtly conveying to me that he believes that I can have a long career, he believes that in 10 years I can still be swimming, can still be swimming at a high level. So yeah, just looking back on it now, I think there was a lot of messaging then that I think inspired me and helped me make the necessary changes in my stroke, in my approach to the sport, and my belief in myself.
Keeping a journal
Katie Ledecky: I started keeping a journal in early 2012. Yuri got frustrated that I wasn’t communicating with him as well as he would have liked in terms of how I was feeling in the water, just my day-to-day feeling of how training was going, things like that. I would kind of give him one-word answers sometimes. So, he gave me the journal, wanted me to start journaling my practices and how I was feeling, and I would have to give the notebook back to him at the end of each week, and he would write a page of notes back to me. So, that was a way of improving communication.
And then after that first year, I really enjoyed doing it and felt like it was beneficial to my swimming, to my training, to my improvement. And so, I’ve continued it all these years. I don’t share those journals with my coaches anymore. I only did that the first year. Now, it’s something for myself. It’s something to help me keep track of my progress, help me build confidence going into big meets, and ultimately, it became such a great resource for me for writing the book. I got to look back at all these journals and take bits and pieces from them, from over the years, and bring back some memories and write about them.
Before my big competitions, I look back at my training from the year and I, you know, I kind of try to star or mark which practices were really great and I can look back at those and it helps me build my confidence going into the big races knowing and you know, reminding myself that I’ve put in all this hard work, I’ve made this progress. I’ve done these great things in training, and I’m ready. I’m ready to perform. I’m ready to do what I’ve worked hard to, to be able to do.
Positive bias
Katie Ledecky: I’m a very positive person. I’m a very optimistic person, happy person. And, you know, I try to maintain that attitude through all things. And of course, I have bad days and I have bad practices. I have, I’ve had bad tests in school. I mean, everyone does. And so, I think it’s been a learning experience. Of course, whenever I’ve had those bad days and again, for me, I’ve had such a good community around me at all times that I have people that uplift me on the hard days and remind me to turn the page or move on, and that’s allowed me to be better the next day and not let one day ruin my week or ruin my competition or anything like that.
High pain tolerance
Katie Ledecky: I think I have a pretty high, high pain tolerance, or so I’ve been told. I think you kind of have to for distance swimming and probably for swimming in general, especially if you’ve done it for as many years as I’ve done it. I experience pain in practice. I experience pain in races. And really, to me, at this point in my career, since I have been doing it for so long, I think the pain is really just a sign that I’m doing things correctly. I’m pushing myself, I’m pushing my limits. If I’m not experiencing pain at a certain point in a distance race, then I’m probably not pushing the pace hard enough early on. So, you have to find the balance so that you don’t feel pain too early and you can get through the races, but you also don’t want to get through the race and feel like you have a lot left in the tank. You want to get to the point where you’re hurting and you’re really feeling like you pushed yourself to the edge, you pushed yourself to your max.
Long-distance races
Katie Ledecky: When I first started swimming, freestyle was my favorite stroke, and so it always has been. And because freestyle is my favorite stroke, there were so many different events that I got to try out from a young age and I just gradually started trying the longer events. So, I swam the 500, probably for the first time when I was maybe nine years old, and then the thousand, and then the mile, or the 800, and 1500. And I think the first time I swam the 1000 short course yard freestyle event, I remember walking away from it and thinking, “Oh, that wasn’t so bad. That was actually kind of fun. I kind of enjoyed that.” And I recognized that that was very different than a lot of my teammates were feeling about those races. They were dreading them or we’re walking away from them saying, “Oh, that was so hard. And that was so bor- or that was so boring. That was not, not very fun.” So, I recognized that. And so, I kept trying those events and I really enjoyed, and I still enjoy training so much that I think I was drawn to doing the hard events, doing the long events, and continuing to learn from racing experience in those events. So I just kept doing it more and more, those longer events, and found that I had a knack for them and just, you know, started qualifying for bigger and bigger meets in the distance events.
I still dabble in the shorter events as well. I’ve gotten to be on a lot of relays, 4×200 freestyle relay, 4×100 freestyle relay. I won gold in the 200 freestyle in Rio. So, I think of myself as a freestyler, first and foremost, and a distant swimmer second, I would say, and then a sprinter third, or a mid-distance swimmer third. So, I like being able to do a wide range of events and train for a wide range of events. But yes, I found my love of distance swimming once I started trying them out pretty, pretty immediately. I think it’s important to stay mentally engaged for those long-distance races. But then at the same time, I’ve also learned different tricks to get your mind off of the pain or not think too much, again, it’s a balance. You have to stay mentally engaged so that you can focus on your pacing and your, your rhythm of your stroke. It’s a very rhythmic thing, distance swimming, if you want to maintain your pace throughout a race. But at the same time, you don’t want to think too much. You don’t want to think too much about the pain. You don’t want to think too much about how long of a swim it is, how intimidating it can be at times. So for me, it’s all about balance.
Making Team USA
Katie Ledecky: I think making the Olympic team in the US, especially, is so difficult because of how deep USA Swimming is and how strong of a swimming country we are. So, you could place 3rd or 4th at Olympic Trials, and swim a time at the trials that might medal at the Olympics because of how strong we are at swimming. So, it’s pretty tough. But then I think that’s also what makes our, our team so tough, once we get to, get to the Olympics. Because we swim at the trials and then a month later, we’re a team. We’re competing with each other. We’re supporting each other. Even though we’re racing hard against each other at the trials, we quickly turn the page and are representing Team USA, and how special is that? So, that’s, that’s what makes our team so tough to beat because we are able to make each other better through the trials, through all the meets leading up to it, and then we’re able to come together so quickly.
Youngest on Team USA
Katie Ledecky: In 2012, I was the youngest, and it definitely was an incredible experience, just being on a team with so many legends in swimming, legends in sports, and it was my first time competing internationally. So, it was so many brand new experiences and I really relied on the veterans to guide me through it to help me to keep an eye out for me, all of those things. And I had some great coaches as well that did the same and really gave me great advice along the way. And luckily for me, my race wasn’t until I think the 6th day of swimming competition. So I had the days leading up to that to really just be a fan of swimming, be a fan of my teammates, and I think those days were crucial for me. They made me feel comfortable in that environment. They allowed me to observe these great athletes and learn from them, and I don’t think I would have won gold if my event was on day one. I think those days were really helpful for me to learn, and to feel comfortable, and to feel ready for my race.
There were so many, so many great athletes on that team that looked out for me. Michael Phelps had an event right before mine and so he gave me a high five, probably 20 minutes before my race. And that definitely made me think back to when I first met him when I was six years old and it was pretty surreal to be on a team with him just nine years later and to be on two Olympic teams with him in 2012 and 2016, and see the end of his career up close and form a friendship with him and all of these great athletes.
An unknown in internationalswimming at the 2012 Olympics
Katie Ledecky: I was definitely an unknown in the international swimming community leading into the London Olympics. I was not favored to win gold or to win a medal. I think a lot of people thought that I just, you know, rose through the ranks and made the US Olympic team, and then there probably wasn’t much improvement that I would make between the trials and the Olympics. And I would be swimming against the reigning Olympic champion, who was going to be swimming in front of her home crowd and in London, and so, kind of the odds, I think, were in her favor and stacked against the rest of the field. And yeah, I was, I was definitely an unknown, but I think I was able to use that to my advantage.
Nobody knew my race strategy. Nobody knew if I would be able to hang with these more experienced swimmers or be able to relax in such an exciting atmosphere with so many people in the stands. You know, William and Kate were there supporting their, their British superstar. And it was, it was just this incredible environment that day that I got to be a part of. I got to be part of this marquee race at the Olympics. And I felt like there was no pressure on me from anyone and that I could deliver. I really believed that I could win, win the gold medal. And at the same time, I believed that if I finished last, I would be OK. I was at my very first Olympics and you know what? There’s another one in four years and I’m setting myself up to be great there. So, it was all just a learning experience and it turned out to be a lot more than that.
I was, I was advising my parents before the finals of the 800 that if I win a medal that they could come down closer and get a better glimpse of the medal ceremony. And so, I was sending emails like that to my, my family in the days leading up to my race. And in the background, you know, at the hotel my, my parents were staying at they were talking to each other, you know, “How are we going to help Katie if, you know, she doesn’t win a medal? She’s going to be disappointed,” or things like that. And so, I think they were probably taken aback a little bit that I had such great belief in myself, but I think they also, they got, you know, such kind of a behind the scenes look at my thought process because I was sending these, sending them these emails and sending, sending them such great, confident emails that, again, I was able to look back on when I was writing this book, I don’t delete anything, so it was a lot of fun to look back at a lot of those memories that I shared with them 12 years ago.
I got out to a very fast start, and really took it out fast, and kind of put everyone in their place and, and just went for it and surprised everyone, surprised the commentators, that’s for sure that I was able to hang on, and I think worldwide that was the case. I think even my teammates and coaches that were watching it were concerned, they were concerned that I was going out too hard, too fast. So, when I was able to hang on for the entire race, hold that lead for the whole race, I think I surprised a lot of people.
I could, I could see that it was the beginning, but I don’t think at that point I knew how long of a career I had ahead of me. I think — I didn’t feel pressure after London, but I felt that there sometimes can be this narrative with young superstars or young gold medalists that, that’s kind of a one-time thing that it’s, you know, it is very difficult to maintain that success and do something greater than a gold medal. You know, I would consider it a great career to have one, one individual gold medal and so, for me, I had to recognize that. I had to recognize that if my career was over now, it would be a success. But at the same time, I was very motivated to not be one of those one-hit wonders. So, my next goal was to break a world record the following year, and I kind of started on the stretch leading up to the Rio Olympics where I broke a bunch of world records in the 800 and 1500 free and the 400 free, re-broke some of those records. And yeah, that was definitely a big stretch of time that I kind of took it, took things to the next level beyond an Olympic gold medal.
The sacrifices teenage elite athletes need to make
Katie Ledecky: I came back from London to Maryland and was starting my sophomore year of high school. Really, I was still making friends at my high school, like, figuring out who my best friends were at the time, things like that. And I had to get back into the classroom. So, I shared a lot of the experiences that I had with my classmates, with my teachers, everyone at my school. But then after that it was back to school, back to training, back to all these things that I love, and on to the next thing. And yes, my classmates, my teachers, they would get excited for me and, and really support me on my swimming, but they also did a great job of keeping things very normal for me, supporting me, making sure that I was still able to feel like a normal high school student.
But then, as you said, like there are things that I would choose to do or choose not to do because I had these big goals for myself. And so, I had to get to sleep early. I had to eat well. I had to get my homework done so that I could be prepared for my swim meet over the weekend. I had to do extra reading and homework over the weekend so that I was able to go travel for my meet the next weekend and not be behind. So you know, I think for me it was all about putting in the work and placing value on the things that were important to me and to me, it was those things that, you know, I wanted to achieve my goals and anything that I gave up, I didn’t see as giving up something. It wasn’t a sacrifice to me because I just had to stay very focused on what I needed to do to achieve my goals.
I think my drive comes from within, but then also from the coaches that I’ve had over the years and the drive that they’ve had, the support that they’ve given me, the belief that they’ve had in me, and then my family as well, the people that have kept me focused on my goals, helped me achieve those goals. It’s not just me that’s winning those gold medals or breaking those records, it’s this whole community of people that have helped me get to those, those markers you could say.
Breaking the World Record at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan
Katie Ledecky: So, usually people don’t break — usually, swimmers don’t break world records in prelim races, and especially in the distance races, because you have to swim both the prelim and a final race. Usually, the swimmers back off the prelim swims to conserve energy for the final the next day. And so, my coach really did want me to not press the prelims too hard and kind of just do — swim the race how I wanted to at points and I followed his advice. I went pretty easy going out the first 4 or 500 of the race, but I was under world record pace for those first 400 and 500 meters and I knew that because I actually at that pool was able to see the scoreboard and the video monitor that was in the arena, it was a soccer arena that was turned into a swimming facility for this meet. So, I could see that I was under world record pace, but I was supposed to be going easy. So I faced this dilemma, do I just continue swimming easy and see what happens? Or do I pick it up a little bit and maybe spend a little more energy on the race than my coaches advising me to? And so, I ended up just deciding to hold kind of hold steady, like, I’m feeling comfortable, this is a comfortable pace. I’m not going to press too hard, but every lap I could see that I was still under world record pace. And ultimately, I broke the world record by I think 2 seconds in the, in the prelim and kind of gave a shrug to my coach after the race like, “I don’t know. I’m sorry,” but it was easy. It didn’t take a lot of effort and I was able to re-break that world record again the next day and that showed that I didn’t put all my energy into the prelim race. And yeah, it was just kind of this surreal race, and people laugh about it and think it’s hilarious that it was so easy, but I think that’s something that I learned from. I learned that my best races are when I’m relaxed, when I’m not placing much expectation on myself, when I’m just having a good time enjoying myself, kind of stress-free, and I try to channel that into all my races now and remember that.
Postural Orthostatic TachycardiaSyndrome (POTS)
Katie Ledecky: At the very end of the competition in Kazan, we had a team pizza party with our families the last night, and I felt like all of a sudden or it kind of — this sensation kind of grew over the night that, like, I felt hot. I felt kind of like I was going to faint, and like, I just had to get away from everyone. So, I went to my room and just didn’t feel right. And then I took a little break from swimming after that meet, just a week or two, and then I got back into training, and when I got back into training, I still didn’t feel right. I wasn’t training as well as I normally do, I was very inconsistent with how I felt, just feeling lightheaded at times, like just walking out of the pool from training. I just felt really exhausted, tired. So, I went and saw a doctor and ultimately was diagnosed with mild POTS – Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. And it’s something that I was able to get under control very quickly. I increased my salt intake, increased my hydration. And really, I think what kind of brought that on in 2015 was I had a virus earlier in the year that I think kind of triggered it because viruses can kind of make the symptoms more apparent.
So, yeah, that was something I was diagnosed with back then. I’ve had it under control all these years, but definitely whenever I get sick, that’s the first thing I think of, like, am I hydrating properly, am I having enough salt, like, am I staying on top of the things that I need to stay on top of? And yeah, I shared that in the book for the first time. I hadn’t really talked about that with anyone besides my family, my coaches, they’ve known, my doctors, obviously. But yeah, it’s just something that I didn’t want to talk about until now. I just, I just, I like to keep some things private, health, health, things. I didn’t want everyone to, to know about it or, you know, ask me tons of questions about it when I was in the midst of, of learning about how to manage it and things like that, so. Yeah, I think since writing about it in the book, I’ve received so much outreach about it. You know, people that have POTS thanking me for sharing my story. And I know that I don’t have quite as severe of the case of POTS that some people do have. And I think since COVID, I think POTS has gotten some more attention because some people have gotten POTS after having COVID, things like that. So, it’s definitely more common these days, more common diagnosis. And I hope that those people that do struggle with it can find ways, work with their doctors, work with people that they love to figure out how to manage it.
Swimming actually helps. I’ve read a lot about POTS and swimming is an activity and I think, yeah, I mean, for me, I just feel so comfortable in the water and I’m horizontal when I’m doing that. So, it’s just, yeah, like the water is my home and I think sometimes when I’m not in my home, when I’m not in my pool, again, I feel like I want to get in the pool and be there. The pool is kind of like my, my home base, yeah.
Rio 2016
Katie Ledecky: I think of myself as a freestyler and I’m a competitive person and I love the relays. And so, when I was able to put together a really good 100 freestyle and the US needed some faster 100 freestylers, I basically raised my hand and started improving in those races at the meets. And I’ve been on the 200 free relay, the 800 freestyle relay, 4×200 for many, many years now, so that’s always been important to me. It’s always fun to be a part of relays. And even though I am training primarily for the distance events, I will always, I think, focus on, on the 200 free to be a part of such a special relay.
I had set a few goals for myself, very specific time goals for my races in Rio at the 2016 games. I sat down with my coach, Bruce Gemmell, a few years prior to the Rio Games and we had set these goals that I was going to work on for Rio. And went through the competition in Rio and I was just hitting these goals on the money, like exactly the time that we were, we had set a few years prior and these were ambitious goals. They weren’t a second faster than my best time or a few tenths faster, it was multiple seconds I was looking to chop off some of my times. So, once I started hitting those goals, I was feeling great and I was just so confident going into each of my races, and my last race was the 800 free in Rio and I just remember walking out to the blocks and saying to myself, “I’m going to go 8:05 or faster because that’s the goal that I set for myself.” And I was just so confident that, because I had achieved all these other goals that week that this one was going to fall exactly in line with that. And so, I, I dove in, I went 8:04, achieved that goal, and just kind of wrapped off this incredible meet that I had. And yeah, just, I improved so much from 2012 to 2016 because I, I grew to love the training. I just invested so much of my time and effort into improving and in training and could see the progress that I made every year in training so clearly that I felt like I had set myself up as well as I could for, for the Rio Olympics.
Well, the Olympics, it’s only every four years and I think a lot of people only tune in to swimming every four years. I wish it would be more, but I understand that the Olympics, you know, brings out more fans to our sport, but for us it’s every year, it’s every day. Again, you can’t take very many breaks in our sport. And there are World Championships each year, and there are things that build toward the Olympics. The Olympics, it’s definitely the pinnacle of our sport, the meet that so many swimmers dream of, of reaching. So for us, the goals are often set around the Olympics and set with the Olympics in mind. And so, yes, I have set goals for the Olympics years in advance. And each year leading up to the Olympics, I try to chip away at those goals and get closer and closer.
Swimming has gotten faster every year, I think, especially over even my career, my 12 years in the sport, I think almost every event has gotten faster. Maybe not necessarily every world record has been broken once, but the depth of fast swimming worldwide has definitely improved, and so the competition is faster, it’s really competitive and nothing is a guarantee in our sport. So, it’s important to always try to improve and try to keep up with, with the times and I think just with technological changes, with social media, with regular media, I think just being able to see what your competitors are doing worldwide so instantaneously I think has driven young swimmers to learn, learn from each other, see how people are swimming, watch video of swimmers from all over the world, things like that. I think those are a few factors that have contributed to our sport getting faster and faster.
Our sport is, is time based and, and some of those races can get really, really close. So, sometimes it’s all about who can have the best finish, who can nail all of the details properly, the start, the turns, the finish, and then everything in between. So, there are a lot of different technical factors that play into things, pacing. And you can try to work on all those things and get everything right, but you could get out touched by one 100th of a second, and that’s just the nature of our sport.
COVID and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo
Katie Ledecky: I was out at Stanford preparing for the Tokyo Olympic Games. I went to school at Stanford from 2016 to 2020, swam for coach Greg Meehan at Stanford, swam collegiately for two years, and then turned professional in the lead up to the Tokyo Games. And everything was going well, and then COVID hit everyone, and the Olympics got delayed a year. So, really, you know, those goals that we had set for Tokyo, again, years in advance, we had to say, OK, we got to delay them one year. We’ve got to continue to put in work for another year. And really, the biggest challenge was that that worked, that work looks a lot different than what we were used to. A lot of the pools got shut down. A lot of the gyms got shut down for large periods of time. And so, I actually trained in a backyard pool for three months. It was actually a very, very nice backyard pool, so don’t think of it as just a little kiddie pool, backyard pool, it was a 25-yard pool with lane lines and a pace clock, and I went every day with my teammate Simone Manuel and my coach Greg Meehan. So, we did that for the first three months and then Stanford reopened their pools, their facilities. Even when that happened, though, things looked very different.
We didn’t have any racing opportunities for many months because we weren’t able to travel due to testing protocols, and I was in the Bay Area and there were certain protocols there that we had to follow. So, just the preparation looked very different, but the goals remained the same. And that was the tricky part. Just managing expectations, managing even expectations around whether the Olympics may or may not happen. You kind of had to recognize that with a delayed Olympics, things could change very quickly. You know, Tokyo could pull out, the Olympic Committee could decide that it wasn’t worth all this extra, you know, all these extra resources that they would have to pour in to trying to create a safe, healthy Olympics. You know, we had to recognize that health has to take priority. And that, you know, we’ve, we’ve got to stay healthy, but we also need to keep the people around us healthy. And so, you have to take that into account when you’re making decisions on where you’re going, where you’re traveling, where you’re competing, all of those things. So, it was definitely a challenging time for me. The biggest challenge was probably being separated from my family. My family was on the East Coast, I was at Stanford. I was very used to them coming out to the West Coast to visit me, but we couldn’t do that. So, just trying to stay in touch with them as best I could, that was the hardest part for me.
I again was trying to swim a lot of different events in Tokyo. I swam the 200 free all the way up to the 1500 free, so, 200, 400, 800, 1500 hundred free. It was the first Olympics that the 1500 free was in the Olympics, so my training had to adjust to that. And I won the first gold medal ever for women in the 1500 free at the Olympics, won the 800 free, finished second in the 400 free, didn’t quite have the best 200 freestyle, I think I finished fifth there, and then was part of a relay that that finished silver and was actually also under the world record at the time. So, great Olympics, such a great experience, so appreciative of being there, I think, first off. We didn’t have any family or friends in the stands which was different. We had to follow a lot of protocols at the, at the Olympics in the village, all of it. All those things were pretty tough, pretty taxing. But to come away with the medals that I did, with the memories that I did, I was really grateful for all of it.
The 200 free final was the same session as the 1500 free final about an hour apart, and so I definitely had to shift from that shorter race into the longer race, which was definitely more of my strong suit, and I knew that I had, not pressure in that race, but I had that expectation to win gold personally and then also externally I knew I was expected to do that. So, I definitely had to shift my mindset quickly from the 200 free into the 1500 free and that was a race where I definitely was thinking a lot about my grandparents and my family and everyone back home that was cheering me on and watching, and that’s what gave me the strength in that race to achieve what I wanted to achieve there with the gold.
2024 Paris Olympics
Katie Ledecky: Well, I’ll show you. This was one of the highlights, I have one of my gold medals here. This is from the 800 freestyle, so this was my fourth straight 800 freestyle gold, London, Rio, Tokyo and then now Paris. So in Paris, I won two gold medals in the 800 and the 1500 free and then bronze in the 400 free and silver in the 4×200 freestyle relay, so. I was really, really pleased with that outcome, broke my Olympic record by 5 seconds in the 1500 free from what I achieved in Tokyo. So, I was pleased with that. The 800 freestyle of course, the four-peat, I felt a lot of expectation, again, on myself on what personally I wanted to achieve, personally, my history with that race definitely was thinking a lot about kind of the magnitude of that and that no female had ever won the same event at four straight Olympics. So, just to be able to touch the wall first in that event, I definitely felt a great sense of relief and joy and all of the emotions.
Putting her game face on
Katie Ledecky: I think I’m, I’m very focused behind the blocks right before the race. And so, I do have a little bit of a game face, but in my head, I’m smiling and enjoying everything, and it just helps me, you know, focus on all the things that are running, running through my head and making sure that I’m diving into the pool and, and doing exactly what I’ve prepared to do.
It’s incredibly exciting to be just about to dive into a big race. I think at that point, you know, you’ve done all the work, and I think it’s such a beautiful feeling to feel confident behind the blocks, to feel ready, and by the time you dive in the water, you can kind of go on autopilot. Your body knows what to do, your mind knows what to do, and you just have to carry it out.
2028?
Katie Ledecky: I would love to compete in 2028. It’s in Los Angeles. It would be incredible to swim on home soil in front of a home crowd. That’s something that not every athlete gets an opportunity to do that. So, it’s definitely very motivating now, thinking of that and exciting. And I’ve been training in Gainesville the last three years between Tokyo and, and Paris, and I’m staying in Gainesville with my coach Anthony Nesty and, and everyone at Florida, we have a really great group and a great group of athletes that will be trying to make it to LA. I know that at this point in my career, I need to take it one year at a time. And so I’ll kind of evaluate where I’m at one year at a time, and each year make that next step, try to get closer to the goals that I have in mind for LA. But again, at this point in my career like I’m, I’m pretty happy with everything I’ve done. Pretty happy that I’ve been able to stay healthy and injury free and just enjoying the sport, enjoying the water and I want to maintain that for my whole life. So, beyond my competitive days, I want to enjoy the sport of swimming. So, I hope that I can continue competitively through LA, and we’ll see, we’ll see what these next four years have in store. We’ll see if my swimming career takes me to LA and I’d, I’d love that. And beyond that, who knows?
Life after competitive swimming
Katie Ledecky: I think after my competitive swimming career, I’d love to one, stay involved in the sport in some capacity. But then two, I’d love to have a family and start a family, so I hope that that’s in my future. And then three, I think I’d like to pursue some of the other things I’m passionate about. I love giving back to my community. I love helping kids, doing things with kids. So, I think something that involves those things. I’ve considered potentially going back to school, going to grad school, maybe business school or law school, but I have to give that some more thought and kind of think about exactly what I want to pursue long term.
How do you, the greatest female Olympic swimmer of all time, stay so down to Earth?
Katie Ledecky: Thank you. I think it comes from my family and having great role models in my family and my friends and all the people that I’ve looked up to in our sport, just I’ve observed how I’d like to, you know, carry on day-to-day. And I think everyone in my life has helped keep my life balanced and I just love the sport so much. I love everything that I’ve gotten to do on the side through the sport of swimming, being able to travel, being able to connect with different people. And I think I don’t take those opportunities for granted, and I want to be able to share what I’ve learned over these years with other people. So, I guess you could say I feel some responsibility to do that, and I feel a responsibility to do that in the right way. And to me, the right way is putting in the work, not taking shortcuts, and showing gratitude for the people that have helped you get there, and that’s what I want to share with other people.
Advice for young athletes
Katie Ledecky: I think I would tell any young athlete to set big goals for yourself. Don’t limit yourself, you know, see yourself getting to a high level. But really, I would encourage them to just pursue their passions in whatever that may be. Maybe that’s the sport that they’re currently doing or maybe that’s some subject in school or some other activity that they love. I think it’s so special if you find something that you really love and feel so strongly connected to or attached to, attracted to. You know, you should go out and try to be the very best that you can be in that area. I think that’s what I’ve been able to find in swimming and I’ve found so much joy in pursuing my goals and challenging myself, being challenged by other people.
And yeah, I would encourage any young athlete, any young student to pursue their passions and to try to see themselves getting to that next level, whether that next level is the Olympics or junior nationals, or whether that next level is getting an A+ in school instead of an A or getting a B instead of a C. I think whatever level you’re at, there’s always room for improvement. Even for me in swimming, I always feel like there’s something I can get better at. And yeah, so I would encourage anyone to just, you know, strive for more to stretch yourself, and great things can come from that.
I think visualization has definitely helped me in my career, and I was able to visualize myself winning that first gold medal at age 15. And I think it’s been important to me to continue to visualize myself achieving these goals that I want to achieve.
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