Stanford freshman Katie Ledecky has been looking as dominant as ever in her first few months as an NCAA swimmer. For the 3rd time in 6 days, she just broke an NCAA, American, and U.S. Open Record. In the morning session, Ledecky already lowered the NCAA mark with a 4:27.54 in prelims. That took down the previous mark of 4:30.37 done by Virginia’s Leah Smith at the 2015 NCAA Championships.
During day 1 finals at the Ohio State Invitational, Ledecky broke her own NCAA Record from prelims, clocking a 4:26.46 in the 500 free. With that, she also broke the American Record as well and the U.S. Open Record for the fastest time done by any swimmer of any nationality on U.S. soil. She finished a tenth under the 4:26.58 she did at the 2015 D.C. Metro High School Championships that was the previous record. A look at the splits will show that Ledecky’s improvement came mostly in the middle 300 of the race. This morning, she held 54-lows throughout that portion of the race. Tonight, however, she was consistently in the 53-range.
Splits Comparison:
| Swimmer | 1st 100 | 2nd 100 | 3rd 100 | 4th 100 | 5th 100 | Final Time |
| Katie Ledecky 2016 (finals) | 51.77 | 53.91 | 53.91 | 53.59 | 53.28 | 4:26.42 |
| Katie Ledecky 2016 (prelims) | 51.64 | 54.48 | 54.05 | 54.16 | 53.21 | 4:27.54 |
| Leah Smith 2015 | 51.35 | 54.38 | 55.03 | 55.32 | 54.29 | 4:30.37 |
At midseason, she’s now broken the NCAA Records in 2 events, as she also took down the 1000 free record in Stanford’s dual meet against Texas last week. At that meet, she clocked a 9:10.49 to clear Smith’s previous record of 9:20.15 by 10 seconds. She also took down a 26-year-old Avery Aquatic Center Pool Record that was previously held by Janet Evans.
Technique isn’t everything as ledecky, s advantage is in aerobic capacity not technique as all elite female long distance swimmers have good to exceptional technique. And if ledecky makes addlington look like a slouch then I,m even more suspicious. The aerobic capacity gap between ledecky and her competition is so huge that it is suspicious.
You jelly?
now if we take out ledecky in the 800 free. The nearest woman had a time of 8:15 ( Rebecca Addington) that,s quite a gap. 8:04/8:15. It,s almost like the kind of gap teenage boys gave women pre ledecky.
Now this this the gap between the textile best 800 free with rebecca addlington
Sun yang 7:39
Addlington 8:15
That,s approximately a 36 second difference and addlington was no slouch. The gap minus ledecky is huge so i won’t say women are close to men in aerobic ability compared to power as it is known than men naturally carry more oxygen in their blood than women. Women can close the gap by doping. Very possible. But naturally… Read more »
Ledecky’s technique makes Adlington look like a slouch. Wake up. The gap is not just a gap in aerobic power.
I don’t think the difference is aerobic capacity between male and female athletes is greater than difference in power. Take out ledecky and the gap is big. In the marathon take out Paula Radcliffe and the gap is big.
Ledecky, s times simply do not make sense. I,m still sceptical. Paula Radcliffe,s time of 2:15. No woman has come near that in the marathon. And we are talking about East African women (Kenyans and Ethiopians) who,s main sport is long distance running. I think the closest is a 2:20 or so. The men,s marathon is a 2:02. Take out Radcliffe ( who I,m sceptical of) and you see that the gap is big. Similar to ledecky.
Actually I think there’s a bigger difference between male and female in power than in aerobic capacity. This one guy, Bob Bowman, said something about that at one point.
We are used but it remains impressive. So close to Rio, after all the pressure, after a coaching change, a coast change, she’s already in records mode. Where is her peak in SCY? With her Rio level and Rio shape I think she must be able to swim 4.24 something.
Interesting to see what she has in store for the 200 free too. Her PB in yards is “only” 1.41.04 so far. Can she swim 1.39? Maybe. Can she break the stunning Missy’s record of 1.39.10? I don’t think so. A 200 free in the bathtub is so different. It’s almost an event for sprinters. Missy opened her race in 47.74 that day! But with KL anything is possible.… Read more »
I think that 52.6 split in Rio makes KL an elite sprinter. Get rid of “long distance” stereotype when talking about her. Of course she will break Franklin’s record at 200. Pellegrini’s LCM one – that is the real challenge.
She’ll definitely go at least 1:39 and probably several seconds faster than 4:24. She wasn’t fully rested for her SCY best times from high school.
Also, a 25 yard pool is not a bathtub. It’s actually about fifteen bathtubs.
I don’t think she needs to swim it like Missy does. Katie is way better at keeping her 200 splits relatively even compared to everyone else. I think she could take it out 48.7 and bring it back between 50 and 50.5. So yeah, obviously will be tough, but don’t make Missy taking it out 47.7 make you think its out of Katie’s range. I say it’s guaranteed she takes it down in college, maybe not this year, but somewhere down the road.
(Also, stop with the bathtub nonsense. It’s stupid, mean, and does not help your image in any way)
She should switch to breaststroke in order to get some challenge. I can’t be fun to keep entering races you know 100% you’ll win.
400 IM! 400 IM! 400 IM!
Hosszu will not go faster 4:30 in Budapest next year. The competition at 400IM will be tough. But I still don’t where Ledecky can drop another 8 sec.
Hosszu ( Kazan ) 1:01.15 – 1:06.25 – 1:18.23 – 1:04.16 (4:30.39)
Ledecky (Atlanata) 1:03.99 – 1:12.32 – 1:22.03 – 59.59 ( 4::37.93)
She threw down a 4:05 in yards this morning… makes me think she might be starting to focus on the event more. I’m usually skeptical of crazy predictions but I don’t like to put limits on Katie Ledecky.
Does this 4:05 indicate any progress? I’m not familiar with her personal records at 400IM SCY It is still well away from Hosszu’s (2012) 3:56
Her best time before coming to Stanford was 4:01. In finals of this particular meet she went a best time of 4:00.6
Lol Stanfords breastroke leg
I kind of wished Katie stayed with the same coach and program that made her so amazingly successful, but there is still life and she is still young. I certainly can’t fault her for going to Stanford.
I thought one of the reasons she was so good was she trained with guys. I hope she can have a training group at Stanford that include some faster guys to chase.
Well she changed from Yuri after ’12, to Bruce. Then she changed from Bruce to Greg after ’16. Could a pattern be forming? Maybe after 2020 she’ll get a job somewhere else in the country, forcing her to have a fourth coach for her fourth Olympics in 2024.
After Stanford her “job” will be professional swimmer – she’ll go whoever she likes.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.