SEBASTIEN BOZON
Nine-time Olympic champion Katie Ledecky became the most successful athlete in the history of the Games on Saturday in Paris, alongside Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina. Behind her consistency, a love of swimming so deep that the quest for titles has never affected her.
“I feel like I’m enjoying it more and more every year,” observed the queen of middle distance running in June during the American trials, on the eve of her fourth Olympic Games at 27, which should not be her last.
With 21 world titles – one more than the legend Michael Phelps – and now 14 Olympic medals including nine gold, the swimmer from Maryland holds her place in the history books, but has already made an appointment for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Revealed at the age of 15, when she won the 800m at the 2012 London Olympics, she won four more titles at Rio 2016 (200m, 400m, 800m, 4x200m), and overcame her disappointment in the 200m (5th) and 400m (2nd) in Tokyo in 2021 to win the 800m and 1,500m.
While the Australian Ariarne Titmus is now clearly ahead of her in the 200 and 400 m, her supremacy over the long distance is such that she holds the 29 best times in history in the 800 m and the 19 best times in the 1,500 m.
– “Testing my limits” –
SEBASTIEN BOZON
From her technical accuracy – she can swim with a chocolate chip cookie on her cap without spilling a drop – to the power of her slightly asymmetrical crawl, everything that gives her a head start has been dissected many times.
But it remains a mystery, especially in a discipline where the monotony and solitude of training have plunged more than one star into depression, from Phelps to five-time Olympic champion Caeleb Dressel to 100m breaststroke king Adam Peaty.
How has Ledecky managed to go through more than a decade at the highest level without showing any sign of weariness, whether she was crushing the competition – as in 2016 – or suffering her first setbacks, hampered in her golden harvest in Tokyo by Titmus?
“Long after another swimmer has broken my records, I will always have the advantage of having been raised in and by the pool. I hope my tenacity will outlast any athletic glory,” the American wrote in her biography, “Just Add Water,” published in June.
In her one-on-one with water, the young woman found the physical pleasure of weightlessness – “doing pirouettes, turning my body in all directions” – but also the more existential pleasure of “putting her body and her psyche to the test”.
– L’anti-Michael Jordan –
The daughter of a university swimmer, who arrived in the pool at the age of six to follow her brother, Katie Ledecky did not immediately stand out for her extraordinary physique – unlike Phelps – but rather for her constant involvement.
SEBASTIEN BOZON
“Katie dives in head first and forces you to give it your all. She’s always trying to maximize her performance so she doesn’t leave anything in the tank,” True Sweetser, one of her training partners at Stanford University, told the LA Times in 2021, more than once “demolished” by their joint sessions.
Her voracity in training – in the water as well as in weight training – contrasts with a surprisingly peaceful attitude in competition, where she celebrates soberly and never forgets to congratulate her opponents.
“Katie wants to win by the biggest margin possible, but I don’t think she wants to break anybody’s soul like Michael Jordan did,” Matt Barbini, USA Swimming’s performance director, told the LA Times.
“It’s a remarkable combination, especially for someone who’s been dominant for so long, which requires so much commitment, while also being so nice, polite and pleasant.”
