{"id":619975,"date":"2025-08-02T11:07:25","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T18:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=619975"},"modified":"2025-08-02T11:07:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T18:07:25","slug":"katie-ledecky-thrilled-at-her-latest-race-of-the-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/katie-ledecky-thrilled-at-her-latest-race-of-the-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Katie Ledecky Thrilled at Her Latest \u2018Race of the Century\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Katie Ledecky Thrilled at Her Latest \u2018Race of the Century\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not much gets by Katie Ledecky.<\/strong> Not in the pool, and not in matters surrounding the pool.<\/p>\n

So when Ledecky took to the podium after winning the 800 free at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships Saturday night<\/a> in Singapore and got ready to field the inevitable question about whether it was the \u201crace of the century,\u201d Ledecky had a sly riposte ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve been a part of a \u2018race of the century\u2019 maybe six times in the last decade,\u201d Ledecky quipped.<\/p>\n

She isn\u2019t wrong, and Ledecky\u2019s stardom exerts a very stellar kind of gravity that attracts attention and bodies to her. If Ledecky, the dominant force in women\u2019s distance swimming for the last decade, seems regularly embroiled in races of the insert-time-period-here, it\u2019s because she inspires them.<\/p>\n

The chasers are now old enough to have grown up idolizing Ledecky, who is 28 but has been swimming at the elite level for nearly half her life. That includes 800 bronze medalist Summer McIntosh,<\/strong> 18, and Lani Pallister,<\/strong> the silver medalist in the 800<\/a> at age 23 who recalled watching U.S. Nationals in person in 2014 and seeing Ledecky break a world record in the 400 free.<\/p>\n

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