BUDAPEST — Sports is perhaps the last refuge of unscripted reality shows, so it would be rude and disrespectful to declare that Katie Ledecky had the women’s 800 freestyle won before the beep went off Friday night here at the 19th FINA world championships.
But, you know, come on.
If we’re being honest, a legit contender for the best show in sports is to see how good Katie Ledecky can be. Still. Ten years after she burst onto the scene, winning the 800 free as a 15-year-old at the London Games in 2012.
“I made it a goal to not be a one-hit-wonder, and here we are,” she said.
Katie Ledecky on the medals stand Friday night // Getty Images
Did Ledecky win? Yes. In 8:08.04. More on that very fast time in a moment. The victory marked her fifth consecutive world championships 800 title — the first swimmer to throw, if you will, a 5-peat.
Ledecky now has 19 world championship gold medals, 22 overall. The 19th broke a tie with Ryan Lochte for career second-most, behind Michael Phelps, 26. The 22 total? Only Lochte, 27, and Phelps, 33, have more. Ledecky has 14 individual world titles; Phelps has 15.
Here in Budapest, Ledecky raced in four events here and was a winner in all four — the 4x2 free relay plus the 400, 1500 and 800 frees.
Her 1500 time was 7.59 seconds faster than she went in winning at the Tokyo Olympics. The 400? A championship record 3:58.15. The 200 relay split? Her fastest ever. If, when the lights go out Sunday, she isn’t named female swimmer of the meet, something is seriously amiss.
“Probably the most fun I’ve had at a meet in a long time,” she said, evidence the gamble she made after Tokyo to move from Stanford to Florida and train under Anthony Nesty with a bunch of guys, including the Olympic distance champion Bobby Finke and others, is proving a winner.
“The results showed.”
Ledecky has the 27 best times in history in the 800 free. 27! This one was the fifth fastest. It was her best since 2018. Australia’s Kiah Melverton took second, 10.73 back. Again: 10.73 seconds behind. Third place: Italy’s Simona Quadarella, 10.96 back.
“She’s a league above everyone else,” Melverton said of Ledecky, adding, “She’s taken distance swimming to a whole ‘nother level and, you know, it is an honor to be up on the blocks next to her and, you know, you just have to kind of focus on what you’re doing because, you know, she’ll be out doing what she does.”
This, truly, is the point — and has been for 10 years — of the women’s 800 free. Ledecky does what she does. Her most ferocious competition is the battle within herself.
No disrespect to anyone else. Because, if the others were as honest and forthcoming as Kiah Melverton, they would all admit the very same thing — you just have to kind of focus on what you’re doing. It’s all you can do, truly. Particularly in high-level swimming. All the more so in distance swimming. It is uniquely solitary, distinctly individual. Eight minutes in the water. By yourself. In your own mind.
As young journalists, we in this craft learn, and quickly, that the unscripted reality that is sports is more than often susceptible, if not typically reduced, to matchups. Rivalries. Star vs. star. What is each week’s NFL contest? Mahomes against Brady! The NBA game of the week? LeBron takes on Steph! Tonight’s baseball game? Can Aaron Judge connect against Clayton Kershaw?
And so on.
Ledecky’s main “rival,” at least as depicted in the mainstream press, Australia’s Ariarne Titmus, is not here in Budapest, opting to race later this summer at the Commonwealth Games.
Both, meantime, have expressed admiration and respect for the other — for the work it takes to, say, go 400 meters in 3:56, which only the two of them have ever done. Titmus now holds the 400 world record. But the 800? Again, Ledecky has the top 27 times. 27!
At any rate, even if Titmus were here, this is the point:
Titmus would be swimming in one lane, Ledecky in another. The only thing Ledecky can control, ever, is what she, Katie Ledecky, is doing. Anytime, anywhere, anyhow. It’s the only thing any of us can ever control. What each of us does. Not what the person in the other lane does.
This brings us back, then, to the starting beep of Friday night’s race.
When it went off, who was Katie Ledecky competing with? Truly, honestly?
This underwater shot from Friday’s race shows, emphatically, what it’s like in a Ledecky 800 — she’s w-a-y ahead and the others are back there somewhere // Getty Images
The winning part is part and parcel of seeing how good she can be. Exploring her own capabilities, capacities, limits. Plain and simple.
Each and every time that beep goes off. Like it did Friday night in her final race at the 2022 world championships.
“I don’t underestimate anyone,” Ledecky made sure to say after Friday’s race. Of course.
A few moments later, she sought to explain the magic and the mystery of what she’s seeking, still, in the 800, 10 years in on the international stage: “Apart from prelims at this level of meet, I rarely am over 8:15. So seconds, and small little fractions of seconds, [that’s what] I’m trying to find each time I race.
“Sometimes I find them.
“And that’s what makes it really satisfying. When,” after going 8:08.04, her fastest time in four years, “you see that kind of result.”