Kathleen "Katie" Ledecky, of Bethesda, Maryland, beat her own record in the 1500-meter freestyle swimming in the preliminary round of the 16th FINA World Swimming Championship in Kazan, Russia.
Ledecky's goal for the preliminaries was not to break the world record but to ensure that she is in top shape and will go to the finals of the said event. The words of her coach, Bruce Gemmell, remained on her mind: 900 easy, 300 build, 300 choice. This meant that she had to go easy for the first 900 meters, build through the next 300, and do whatever she wanted towards the end.
Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post described the race as breathtaking. "Her race was breathtaking in a visceral sense - as her closest competitor, Australia's Jessica Ashwood, finished a whopping 28.81 seconds and nearly an entire pool-length behind - but it was just as impressive, in a swim-nerd sense, as a model of efficiency and consistency. Throwing out her opening lap of 28.56, when she got a terrific jump and sprinted to the lead, and her closing lap of 29.47, when she knew the record was within her grasp, there was a less than a second's difference between the fastest (30.53, second lap) and slowest (31.42, fourth) times in the other 28," Sheinin depicted.
Gemmel was also shocked by Ledecky's excellent performance. "That's the great [lesson] I think is true with all sports: When you can relax and not have expectations and let yourself perform at the level you've prepared for, sometimes you get your best performances that way," Gemmell said. "I would imagine you'd find the same thing from golfers and tennis players and skiers," he added.
In an after-race interview with a Kazan reporter, Ledecky commented on her new world record saying, "To be honest, it did feel pretty easy, I wasn't kicking much. I think breaking that record is just a testament to the work I've put in and the shape that I'm in right now that I was able to do that. I'm in quite a bit of shock."
Ledecky, a fresh graduate of Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, is going to college at Stanford University in 2016 instead of this year to focus more on the upcoming 2016 Olympics.
