{"id":110327,"date":"2014-09-22T16:33:36","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T23:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=110327"},"modified":"2014-09-22T16:34:22","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T23:34:22","slug":"5-reasons-why-katie-ledeckys-1500-freestyle-deserved-usa-swimmings-performance-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/5-reasons-why-katie-ledeckys-1500-freestyle-deserved-usa-swimmings-performance-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Reasons Why Katie Ledecky\u2019s 1500 Freestyle Deserved USA Swimming\u2019s Performance of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by Delly Carr<\/p>\n<p><i>Commentary by Jeff Commings<\/i><\/p>\n<p>PHOENIX, Arizona, September 22. A couple of weeks ago, the folks at USA Swimming asked for my thoughts on the top swimming performance by an American in 2014. This was my email response:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>That\u2019s easy. It\u2019s Katie Ledecky\u2019s 1500 free.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, it was no surprise to me that Ledecky won USA Swimming\u2019s Performance of the Year last weekend, in addition to the Athlete of the Year. And compared to everything in the years since Michael Phelps\u2019 perfect 8-for-8 in the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Ledecky\u2019s 1500 free at the Pan Pacific Championships stands tall above the rest. Better than anything done in the supersuits of 2008 and 2009. Better than Rebecca Soni\u2019s sub-2:20 in the 200 breast. Better than Sun Yang\u2019s 1500 at the 2012 Olympics. Better than Missy Franklin almost skipping over 2:04 in the 200 back in London.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, I thought those swims were years ahead of their time. Ledecky\u2019s 15:28.36 is <i>light years<\/i> better than anything that was previously thought possible. Those of my era thought Janet Evans\u2019 15:52.10 from 1988 was Beamonesque. Now, we have to start coining the term <b><i>Ledecky-esque<\/i><\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it. No one is within 10 seconds of that time. At the elite level, that\u2019s a monstrous gap. To compare it to the men\u2019s 1500, Sun Yang is just seven seconds ahead of the field. That\u2019s still a big gap, but Ledecky often has a lead of that size by 200 meters.<\/p>\n<p>I present five reasons why Ledecky\u2019s 1500 free is bound to be the best swim of 2014, not just for Americans, but on a global scale.<\/p>\n<h1>1. She made distance swimming cool again.<\/h1>\n<p>It\u2019s been tough to convince swimmers to lean toward distance events. Very few people want to put in the training, and the biggest stars of the sport specialize in races 200 yards\/meters or less. But now little girls are seeing Ledecky breaking barriers, and suddenly Missy Franklin has some competition for America\u2019s Swimming Sweetheart. And that\u2019s a good thing in a sport where the idols tend to be mostly male.<\/p>\n<p>I would imagine Ledecky is inspiring male swimmers, too. Only about 50 men in the United States who race the 1500 free regularly can swim the mile faster than Ledecky. If I were a teenage male who sees a girl swimming faster than me, it would get me out of bed a little bit earlier every morning to put in the extra work so my friends can stop saying that a girl swims faster than me.<\/p>\n<h1>2. She\u2019s churning out the meters by herself.<\/h1>\n<p>If you saw Ledecky\u2019s 1500 free, you noticed that she was not challenged after 200 meters. By 1300 meters, she was lapping people. That meant she was a full 100 meters ahead of someone, in a race where the other seven swimmers are not slouches. That takes a lot of mental fortitude to keep pushing your body harder than it wants to be pushed with the goal of shocking the world.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_107144\" style=\"width: 2413px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/katie-ledecky-pan-pacs-2014-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-107144\" data-attachment-id=\"107144\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/pan-pacific-championships-day-two-finals-live-recap\/katie-ledecky-pan-pacs-2014-1\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/katie-ledecky-pan-pacs-2014-1.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"2403,1600\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;4&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Delly Carr&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;NIKON D4&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1408656936&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;600&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;5000&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.0005&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"katie-ledecky-pan-pacs-2014 (1)\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Photo Courtesy: Delly Carr&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/katie-ledecky-pan-pacs-2014-1-700x500.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/katie-ledecky-pan-pacs-2014-1-1024x681.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/katie-ledecky-pan-pacs-2014-1.jpg\" alt=\"Photo Courtesy: Delly Carr\" width=\"2403\" height=\"1600\" class=\"size-full wp-image-107144\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/katie-ledecky-pan-pacs-2014-1.jpg 2403w, https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/katie-ledecky-pan-pacs-2014-1-1024x681.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2403px) 100vw, 2403px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-107144\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo Courtesy: Delly Carr<\/p><\/div>\n<h1>3.  The second gear in the final third of the race was astounding.<\/h1>\n<p>I was feeling a little sad when Ledecky started falling off her world record pace around 500 meters. Even though it was a few tenths slower, I felt Ledecky\u2019s engine was running out of gas. She had swum a lot already in Australia, including gold medals in the 200, 400 and 800 freestyles and the 800 free relay.<\/p>\n<p>But once she pushed off the wall at 900 meters, something must have clicked, because an entirely different swimmer emerged before me. This wasn\u2019t a swimmer who \u2013 understandably \u2013 was a little too ambitious in her final race of the meet. This was someone who downed a can of spinach, flexed her muscles and took down the Brutus that was the world record line. By the 1000-meter mark, she was seven tenths of a seconds ahead of record pace. One hundred meters later, that grew to 1.5 seconds. And it kept growing to six seconds by the end of the race.<\/p>\n<p>How does that happen? Whether Ledecky was \u201csaving up\u201d for a final push or whether she really did get over the wall in terms of dealing with her fatigue, it\u2019s an astounding feat to switch from an average of 31.21 per 50 meters to 30.94 in the final 500. Three tenths might not seem like a lot, but it is.<\/p>\n<h1>4. She is only 17.<\/h1>\n<p>I am going to knock on as many wooden surfaces as possible before saying the next statement.<\/p>\n<p>Now that I\u2019ve done that, I want to say that, barring injury, Ledecky is bound to take the 1500 freestyle to even more spectacular places. The same goes for the 400 and 800 free as well, but let\u2019s talk solely about the mile. Since it\u2019s not an Olympic event, very few women put any concentration on it, even when preparing for the world championships when it is a featured event. Since she\u2019s just a teenager, there is a possibility that many more years of lifetime bests are in the cards. We might not see that from Sun, her male distance counterpart, as he\u2019s likely to call it a career very soon. But Ledecky\u2019s ceiling is ever-changing, and could continue to rise in this final year of training with coach Bruce Gemmell.<\/p>\n<p>And what will happen when Greg Meehan takes over for Ledecky\u2019s training at Stanford? I\u2019m sure it\u2019s an awesome burden for Meehan to have, but he would not have recruited her if he didn\u2019t think he could handle the challenge. Evans didn\u2019t break any world records in her 20s, something that is commonplace for female distance swimming stars. But I sense that Ledecky has a tight rein on her career, and aims to challenge the myth that female distance swimmers can\u2019t continue to improve as they age. I\u2019m looking forward to that.<\/p>\n<h1>5. It wasn\u2019t the best day for a world record swim.<\/h1>\n<p>In fact, the entire meet didn\u2019t set anyone up for swimming at their best. Strong winds and rain were a problem, but the cold Australian air in the middle of the country\u2019s winter was likely the biggest factor in the slower-than-expected times at the outdoor facility. Ledecky probably looked at the sky before setting off on her epic 1500 and said \u201cWhatever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Every athlete who was at the Pan Pacific championships will tell you the weather was miserable. Athletes were huddled inside tents, wrapped in parkas and wearing boots. The fact that Katie Ledecky was the only swimmer to break a world record (two, when you count her mind-blowing 400 free) was not lost on anyone. Many in the media agreed that Ledecky is not of this world.<\/p>\n<p>Ledecky is definitely human, born of Earth parents with red blood coursing through her veins. But she is of a new mold in swimming, one that might not be found in many years.<\/p>\n<p>We said this of Phelps, too. And of Missy Franklin. And of Matt Biondi. And of Mark Spitz. It\u2019ll take time, but the next woman to shatter our expectations might not be too far away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by Delly Carr Commentary by Jeff Commings PHOENIX, Arizona, September 22. A couple of weeks ago, the folks at USA Swimming asked for my thoughts on the top swimming<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":108098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,17,7,10],"tags":[28841,27847,111,25031,616,112,6302,25136,26329,26253],"class_list":["post-110327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-commentary","category-usa","category-world","tag-bruce-gemmell","tag-greg-meehan","tag-janet-evans","tag-katie-ledecky","tag-mark-spitz","tag-matt-biondi","tag-michael-phelps","tag-missy-franklin","tag-rebecca-soni","tag-the-2012-olympics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>5 Reasons Why Katie Ledecky\u2019s 1500 Freestyle Deserved USA Swimming\u2019s Performance of the Year - Swimming World<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/5-reasons-why-katie-ledeckys-1500-freestyle-deserved-usa-swimmings-performance-of-the-year\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"5 Reasons Why Katie Ledecky\u2019s 1500 Freestyle Deserved USA Swimming\u2019s Performance of the Year\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Photo by Delly Carr Commentary by Jeff Commings PHOENIX, Arizona, September 22. 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