NCAP 17-year old Katie Ledecky has had a very good meet, but coming into the final session, didn’t quite look in the kind of shape that might challenge any American Records.
But, as we’ve seen with some frequency from the best distance swimmer in the world, swimming records in certain events doesn’t necessarily correlate to records in other events at the same meet.
This is all leading up to Ledecky swimming a 15:13.30 to break her own American and U.S. Open Records of 15:15.17 in the women’s 1650 free on Saturday in Greensboro, North Carolina. Ledecky’s last record swim in the event was at this same meet a year ago.
That also takes down the National Age Group Record for 17-18’s of 15:24.35 done by Katie Hoff in 2008. That swim by Hoff was the American Record before Ledecky came along, making her now more than 10 seconds faster than any other woman in the history of this event.
Key splits comparisons for Ledecky:
| Ledecky ’13 | Ledecky ’14 | |
| First 100 | 52.55 | 53.76 |
| First 200 | 1:48.26 | 1:49.95 |
| First 500 | 4:35.35 | 4:36.88 |
| First 1000 | 9:14.22 | 9:13.99 |
| Last 500 | 4:37.28 | 4:36.58 |
| Last 1000 | 9:16.22 | 9:13.55 |
| Last 1000 | 54.32 | 53.86 |
| Total 1650 | 15:15.17 | 15:13.30 |
Ledecky was not nearly as aggressive going out this year as she was last year, but midway through this race she turned on her motor, and that was the big difference maker: her finishing speed.
Amazing athlete.
Pretty sure her last 500 wasn’t a 5:36
Congrats champion.
Distance swimming is really fun with Katie Ledecky.
KL is swimming with more control now. When she was younger she used to go out too fast.
All hail The Queen!