2024-08-01 09:05:02
Team USA swimmer Katie Ledecky won yet another Olympic gold on Wednesday during the women’s 1500-meter freestyle race, further solidifying her place in swimming history as the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT).
If you missed the Bethesda native leaving everyone else in the pool meters behind, you can catch the highlights here. (Unfortunately, the highlights don’t include the fact that the cameraman literally had to zoom out to get the other swimmers in the shot by the end of the race.)
Her 2024 Paris Olympics performance broke the Olympic record for fastest race in the women’s 1500m freestyle event. It would be bittersweet for the previous holder of that record, except… well, that was also Ledecky.
That got us wondering… how many other records does Katie Ledecky hold?
Here’s a list of Katie Ledecky’s medals, records, superlatives and other impressive swimming accomplishments. (Don’t worry, we’ll update this piece with new accomplishments Katie earns throughout the rest of the games.)
How many Olympic medals does Katie Ledecky have?
Ledecky made her Olympic debut in 2012 at the London Olympics, then went on to swim in the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Paris is her fourth Olympic appearance.
In that time, Ledecky has won a whopping 12 Olympic medals, including Wednesday’s 1500m victory. That race was her eighth gold medal. Here’s the breakdown:
- 2012 London: Gold medal, 800m freestyle (her only event that Olympics)
- 2016 Rio: Gold medal, 200m freestyle
- 2016 Rio: Gold medal, 400m freestyle
- 2016 Rio: Gold medal, 800m freestyle
- 2016 Rio: Gold medal, 4x200m freestyle relay
- 2016 Rio: Silver medal, 4x100m freestyle relay
- 2020 Tokyo: Gold medal, 800m freestyle
- 2020 Tokyo: Gold medal, 1500m freestyle
- 2020 Tokyo: Silver medal, 400m freestyle
- 2020 Tokyo: Silver medal, 4x200m freestyle relay
- 2024 Paris: Bronze medal, 400m freestyle
- 2024 Paris: Gold medal, 1500m freestyle
And Ledecky isn’t done yet. Thursday brings the 4x200m freestyle relay event, where she’s likely to win another medal and become the most-decorated U.S. woman in the Olympics.
The only other female swimmer to match Ledecky in gold medals is Jenny Thompson, the U.S. swimmer who competed in 1992, 1996 and 2000.
Thompson and Ledecky are, as of Wednesday, neck-and-neck for most gold medals from a female Olympic swimmer from any country.
Ledecky is also only one medal behind the record for the most medals of all time from a U.S. athlete in women’s swimming. Should Ledecky medal in the 4x200m freestyle relay on Thursday, her 13 medals will put her in that top tier alongside Thompson, Dana Torres and Natalie Coughlin.
Michael Phelps still holds the record for most Olympic medals of all time, with a whopping 23 Olympic golds, according to NBC Olympics.
Record times
Ledecky holds world records in two events, and has broken world records over a dozen times, according to NBC Olympics.
And remember how her 1500m freestyle race broke her own Olympic record? That’s happened a majority of the time Ledecky has broken a swimming record.
In total, Ledecky owns the 20 fastest times in the women’s 1500m freestyle event’s history. And it’s no wonder, since she does things like winning her preliminary heat by 17.83 seconds.
Ledecky also holds the world record in the 800m freestyle event.
Has anyone ever beaten Katie Ledecky?
When it comes to world championships and the Olympics, Katie Ledecky is, to date, unbeaten in the the 800m freestyle and in the 1500m freestyle.
In Tokyo, Australian Ariarne Titmus beat Ledecky in the 400m freestyle by about half a second. Titmus also beat Ledecky, and Canada’s Summer McIntosh, in the 400m freestyle in Paris on Saturday.
According to NBC Olympics, Katie Ledecky “is comfortably the greatest distance swimmer of all time, regardless of gender.” No swimmer comes close to her record in events above 400m.
Not a superlative, but still cool
For her, frankly, astonishing swimming accomplishments, President Joe Biden awarded Katie Ledecky the Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this year.
It’s the highest civilian honor in the United States, and Ledecky joined the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Michelle Yeoh and Al Gore when she received the award in May.
And in other cool Ledecky facts, NBC Sports did the math and found out that she’s swum over 37 million meters in her lifetime — around 23,000 miles.
That means if you add up Ledecky’s time swimming — as an age group swimmer as a child, during her practice time events, in her world championship races, her time in the Olympics and her training — she has swum about as far as the circumference of the Earth.
Put another way, Katie Ledecky could have swum one-tenth of the way to the moon by now.
