Katie Ledecky has taken over women’s swimming, starting in 2012 when she made her first appearance at the Olympic Trials in Omaha, Nebraska. She was only 15 years old and it was her first national competition. In a sport where wins are often measured in fractions of a second, Katie placed first in the 800-meter freestyle more than two seconds ahead of the second-place finisher. The swimmer from Washington D.C. made the 2012 Olympic team and was the youngest American at the 2012 games. Ledecky placed third in qualifying heats and in the 800-meter final, she motored past the competition winning by a full four seconds with a time of 8:14.63, just .53 of a second behind the 2008 world record set by Rebecca Adlington.
After the 2012 Olympics, Katie took to international competition and hard training. In the time between the 2012 and 2016 Olympics Katie collected dozens of awards and honors while carving through multiple world records. At the 2015 World Championships in Kazan, Katie set new world records for the 1500 and 800-meter freestyle events while earning gold in the 200, 400, 800, and 1500-meter freestyle events. 2016 brought the next set of Olympic Trials and Katie continued her success, winning the 800-meter by a full 10 seconds and was named Female Swimmer of the Meet.
In 2016 at the Rio Olympics, Katie continued her dominance setting new and currently standing world records in the women’s 400 and 800-meter freestyle. She took home five medals, four gold and one silver. Only one US competitor, Michael Phelps, took home more medals than Katie. As of 201,8 Katie has won 24 gold medals, counting international competition and Olympics. On June 7th 2018 she signed a lucrative sponsorship deal with TYR swimming. In a field where men often earn more money than their peers, the TYR deal puts Katie into the top tier of earners. On the day she signed her deal she said, “Hopefully it is an inspiration to all people, especially women and girls, to embrace their value, dream big, and work hard because big things can happen.” With the sponsorship deal and her constantly smashing world records, Katie sees herself swimming for many more years to come.
