Katie Ledecky Named USA Swimmer of the Year For Record-Tying 5th Time

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Katie Ledecky has been named the USA Swimmer of the Year.

USA Swimming announced the award at its annual banquet at the United States Aquatic Sports Convention in Jacksonville, Florida.

Ledecky has won the award five times in the past six years. She won four in a row from 2013-16 before Caeleb Dressel won last year.

Winning the award for the fifth time ties her with Michael Phelps for the most in history. No other female has won the award more than twice (Janet Evans and Jenny Thompson). It is the 15th time in the past 39 years (one tie) that a female swimmer has earned the award.

The award was established in 1981 and is voted on by the USA Swimming House of Delegates, given to an individual with the most outstanding year of swimming performances.

Ledecky is the first swimmer ever to have won the USA Swimmer of the Year Award while also being named Academic All-American of the Year across all NCAA Division I sports in the same season.

It was a banner season for Ledecky in college pools and around the world.

She won five medals for Team USA at the 2018 Pan Pacific Championships in Tokyo (three individual event gold medals, most of any international swimmer). She was the only returning (and repeating) individual gold medalist from Team USA’s 2014 Pan Pacific Championship squad.

She now has a career total of 31 international medals for Team USA in major competition (27 gold, three silver, one bronze).

Ledecky finished the season with top times in the world in three individual LCM events, most of any swimmer in the world this season (400 free, 800 free, 1500 free) and was second in the 200 free.

She broke the world record in the 1500 free by five seconds, making it her 14th career world record performance. She also broke American records in 400-yard IM, 1650-yard free, and 1500-meter free.

At the NCAA championships, she won the 500 free, 1650 free and was on the winning 800 free relay to lead Stanford to its second consecutive national championship. She won Pac-12 Swimmer of the Year after winning conference titles in the 200 free, 1500 free and 400 IM.

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Albert Alejo

5 years ago

Congrats, Katie!!!

Helen Wang

5 years ago

Big congrats to Katie.

Bob McKeon

5 years ago

She the best