The Washington Post has honored the U.S. Olympic Swim Team as its overall Sports Figures of the Year in honor of the incredible performance the American team put forth in Rio. In the piece by Dave Shenin, the Post pointed out how for one week in August, Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky became the center of the American sporting universe.
“Team USA won 46 gold medals in Rio, 19 more than any other nation, and more than a third of them — 16 — were won by its swim team. And of those 16, twice as many as the Americans had won at the 2015 World Championships, Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky were responsible for nine — five individually and four as part of relays. For the eight days of the Olympic swim meet, Ledecky and Phelps were unbeatable, unavoidable and impossible not to embrace — the former with her humility out of the water and her indefatigable, machine-like efficiency in it, and the latter with his ageless power, his story of redemption and his baby boy, Boomer, in his mother’s arms in the stands.”
Shenin also points out how Phelps ended up competing in Rio against athletes who grew up idolizing him and how Ledecky posted unprecedented margins of victory.
Also discussed in the feature are gold medalists Anthony Ervin, Maya DiRado and Simone Manuel, the Lilly King–Yulia Efimova clash and the Ryan Lochte fiasco that followed the swimming portion of the Olympics.
Read the full feature by clicking here.
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