What a thrilling race! At the end of the 400m women’s freestyle swimming event at Rio 2016 on Aug. 7, there was only one woman standing above all. That was Team USA’s Katie Ledecky, who broke her own world record with her gold-medal winning performance!
After the exciting final at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium in Barra Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 7, Katie Ledecky took the gold! Washington, D.C. native Katie, 19, was the favorite to win the race, and she held a strong lead from the very start of the 400m freestyle event. By the third turn, Katie was far ahead of her opponents, even swimming faster than the world record time that she held herself. She held on to not only win the gold, but also take her third world record in the event with an amazing time of 3:56!
2016 Rio Olympics — See Pics Of All The Highlights
Though 32 swimmers were participating in this event, all eyes were turned towards Katie, as she held the world records for the 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle races. At the 2012 games in London, she blew the swimming world away, winning the gold medal in the 800m freestyle event by more than 4 seconds.
Since that event, she has dominated the international competition, taking home 15 medals from the Olympics to the International Swimming Federation World Championships and the Pan Pacific Championships. It also seems that whenever she leaves a pool, she also leaves another world record broken. Yet, she remains humble about all that she’s done.
“What I’ve done over the past couple years has been pretty great, but even that doesn’t define my swimming. Working hard and doing everything I can to be successful should be my identity,” she told ESPN ahead of the Olympic games, and that incredible work ethic is why she’s expected to go far.
“What makes Katie so remarkable is just how insatiable she is,” Connor Jaeger, 25, one of the U.S.’s best distance swimmers, said of his fellow American superstar. “You can see it. Every race she does, she wants more.” Katie will have two more chances to bring home the gold. She competes in the Women’s 200m freestyle on Aug. 8 and on Aug. 11, she’ll compete in the Women’s 800m freestyle.
What did you think about the women’s 400m freestyle competition, HollywoodLifers? Did you want Katie to win?
