BUDAPEST — In the land before time, when there were no cellphones, those of us of a certain generation were sent out of the house by exasperated mothers who didn’t know the first thing about bicycle helmets and, truth be told, didn’t much care. They just wanted us out until it was dark.
So off we went, baseball cards in our spokes. It was a very exciting day when the new edition of certain magazines would show up in the racks at the Ben Franklin five-and-dime store. It was super-exciting when Mad magazine would show up, with stupid Alfred E. Neuman on the cover, grinning, “What, me worry?”
Now that these 2017 FINA world championships are in the history books, can we finally acknowledge Alfred E. Neuman as Team USA’s unofficial spokesdude?
No Michael Phelps, no Ryan Lochte, no Missy Franklin. No worries.
BUDAPEST — It’s only Day One of the swim action of these 2017 FINA world championships, and here is the dilemma.
How many different ways are there to say Katie Ledecky is great?
In the first final in a meet she is expected to — strike that, absent something freaky, will — dominate, Ledecky set a new championship record in the women’s 400 freestyle, winning by more than three seconds.
KAZAN, Russia — In keeping with the Led Zeppelin selection that blared out from the PA system before the start of the finals here at Kazan Arena, the next-to-last night of the 2015 world championships, Saturday’s racing made for another edition for the U.S. swim team of Good Times Bad Times. Heading toward Rio 2016, the question: is this Dazed and Confused U.S. team ready for prime time?
Katie Ledecky cemented her status as the world’s most dominant swimmer, setting her third world record of the meet in winning the 800 freestyle in a world-record 8:07.39 — a whopping 3.61 seconds under her own prior mark. Earlier this week, she won the 200, 400 and 1500 and, as well, anchored the 4x200 free relay to victory. For her, clearly, The Song Remains the Same.
In two world championship appearances, Kazan 2015, and Barcelona 2013, Ledecky has only gold medals. Nine finals, nine golds. Plus one Olympic final as well, at the London 2012 Games: gold in the 800.
The 800 world record she set Saturday? Ledecky’s 10th since 2013.
For far too many others on the U.S. team, would the appropriate Zeppelin selection maybe be I’m Gonna Crawl? Or, in reference to the rest of the world, You Shook Me?
It used to be, of course, that the U.S. team gave No Quarter.
American racers would Bring it On Home, remorselessly, on the way toward winning a haul of medals.
With just one more day to go at these championships, the U.S. team stood atop the medals count, with 18, seven gold.
That, though, is a considerable distance from the 29 medals, 16 gold, the U.S. took home from Barcelona 2013.
The only Americans with individual golds: Ledecky and Ryan Lochte, winner of the men’s 200 individual medley.
Other points of note from the medals table after Saturday:
The Australians have six gold medals, 12 overall. Six equals the Aussie gold total from: the Shanghai 2011 worlds plus the London 2012 Games plus the Barcelona 2013 worlds.
China has 12 overall medals, too, four gold.
The British team, the surprise of the meet, has nine overall medals, five gold.
While there are reasonable questions about whether the U.S. selection process for this meet is still the way to go — the team was picked a year ago — the indisputable takeaway from this meet will be that the rest of the world is more than capable of winning races the United States had, for years, straight-out owned.
Australian Mitchell Larkin’s victory in the men’s 200 backstroke marked the first time an American had not won the event at a worlds or Olympics since 1994.
Larkin became the first swimmer since world record-holder Aaron Piersol to win the 100 and 200 backstrokes at a long-course worlds.
Ryan Murphy finished fifth, Tyler Clary — the 2012 London Games gold medalist in the event — seventh.
At the Barcelona 2013 worlds and again the year before, at the London 2012 Games, the Americans swept the Olympic-event backstrokes (the 100 and 200 — the 50 is not an Olympic event). Here: Australia swept the Olympic-event backstrokes.
In the men’s 4x200 free relay, the United States had won gold at every world championships and Olympics since 2004. Here? Silver, in 7:04.75, 42-hundredths behind the British, anchored by new sprint sensation James Guy, winner here of the 200 freestyle itself.
Last Sunday, the U.S. men’s 4x100 relay team failed to qualify for the finals.
It was a measure of how seriously the Americans took the final event on Saturday's program, the 4x100 mixed free relay, that they threw out four of the biggest names on the team: Lochte, Nathan Adrian, Simone Manuel, Missy Franklin.
They won, in a world-record 3:23.05.
In San Antonio, meanwhile, at the U.S. championships, which are going on simultaneously, Michael Phelps — swimming there instead of here because of the fallout from his drunk-driving case — turned in the fastest 200 fly time of the year on Friday, 1:52.94.
That also marked Phelps’ fastest time in the event since 2009.
It would have won here by 54-hundredths of a second.
“It’s good to do it on my own shore in the country that I represent,” Phelps said afterward. “I think it just shows you that anything is possible if you do want something bad enough. I went through a lot, and to be able to train like I did to get ready for this and do that, I can do anything I put my mind to.”
Then again, there was this from Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh, who won the 200 fly here, in 1:53.48: “I saw his time,” meaning the San Antonio swim. “It’s quite good but it doesn’t matter because I won the world championship.”
And le Clos, after winning the 100 fly on Saturday night, traditionally Phelps’ province, in 50.56: “I just did a time that [Phelps] hasn’t done in four years, so he can keep quiet now.”
The sole American in the finals, Tom Shields, finished fourth, in 51.06.
Cseh took second, in 50.87. Joseph Schooling, in 50.96, grabbed third, the first-ever swim worlds medal for Singapore, and just one day before its 50th National Day.
Phelps won the 100 fly in London. He did not swim two years ago in Barcelona. Le Clos is now the back-to-back worlds winner of the race.
Adrian had looked awesome in qualifying for the men’s 50 free, setting an American record by going 21.37 in the semifinals. That was, briefly, the year’s top time.
In Saturday’s finals, Adrian took second, in 21.52, 33-hundredths behind France’s Florent Manaudou, who put down a 21.19.
In the women’s 200 backstroke, which went down before the 4x1 mixed relay, Franklin turned first at 100 and 150 but finished second, behind Australia’s Emily Seebohm. The winning time: 2:05.81. Franklin: 2:06.34.
Franklin had won the 200 back at Barcelona 2013 and Shanghai 2011 and, as well, at London 2012. She is also the world record-holder in the event, 2:04.06, set in March, 2012.
Seebohm’s final 50 meters: 31.4.
Franklin: 32.98.
Same point, another set of stats:
At 150, Franklin was up on Seebohm by 1.31 seconds. Seebohm ended up winning the race by 53-hundredths of a second. That is — a lot to think about.
Franklin said later Saturday that she was “honestly really proud” of her performance here, explaining, “I have come a long way in a couple months. That gives me a lot of confidence that if I can come this far in two months, then I’m really excited to see what I can do with a year.”
As for Ledecky:
— A gold medal Sunday in the 400 free.
— A world record in Monday’s 1500 prelims. Another world record in Tuesday’s finals, followed 29 minutes later by racing for a place in the 200 free finals.
— A gold medal Wednesday over an incredible field in the 200.
— The anchor leg Thursday in the winning 4x2 relay.
And then, Saturday, world record in the 800.
“I just couldn’t be happier with how that swim went, how this whole week went,” she said late Saturday.
She also said, “I kind of thought it would be 8:08, so to see the 8:07 was, like, great.
“You know, it’s August 8th. I was swimming the 800. And, believe it or not, it would have been my grandpa’s 88th birthday. And so we were joking yesterday, my family, you know we don’t really talk about times or anything but they were just kind of telling me all these things. They were, like, 8:08, you know!
“I didn’t have any pressure. I didn’t really feel like I needed to do that. But I thought that would be really cool. 8:08. That’s why I was really happy with 8:07.”
Just, you know, a Whole Lotta Love.
Katie Ledecky took down Missy Franklin in the women’s 200 freestyle Thursday evening at the U.S. nationals in Irvine, California, and though both laughed and made all sweet about it because that’s how they are, and Franklin even danced on deck when the poolside announcer talked about the Backstreet Boys, this — when, years from now, they look back — may well be one of the Katie Ledecky signature moments. Ledecky touched in 1:55.16, a full 1.24 ahead of Franklin. It was the second-fastest time in the world this year and, for Ledecky, a personal best. Which ought to give everyone pause, because Ledecky just turned 17 in March and has so far concentrated on the 400 and above. She simply has not raced the 200 much. As she learns the race, she probably will get a lot, lot faster.
The two of them are — at once — racers, teammates and friends, Ledecky headed for Stanford, Franklin already at Berkeley, the both of them expected mainstays for years to come not just on the U.S. team but on the American 4x200 relay.
That relay, in fact, is what Ledecky — and coach Bruce Gemmell — have said is the thing that drew her down to the 200 from the distance events she has come to dominate.
Then again, she was entered in Irvine in, among other events, the 100 free, too. She simply is becoming so good that she has to try.
Last year, at the world championships in Barcelona, after Ledecky was named the meet’s outstanding swimmer, she said Franklin should have had the honor.
This was their back-and-forth then:
“I am sooooooo proud of Katie. She was absolutely unbelievable. I think she has probably been my absolute favorite swimmer to watch ever." — Franklin
"Missy deserves it probably more than I do. Missy had an incredible week. We are all so proud of her. What she did this week, we were sitting there in awe." — Ledecky
This was them Thursday on the pool deck:
“You never know with Missy. It was a tough race. I just enjoyed being in the final.” — Ledecky
“It’s so special. Watching Katie in the 1500, the 800, it’s a treat for everyone. Being able to race her in the 200, it just makes you better.” — Franklin
“I watch her all the time. She’s amazing. It’s great to watch her here and learn from her.” — Franklin
This is how this sort of thing is really is.
Here’s how it is, too:
On Thursday night, Katie Ledecky slipped down into a distance that Missy Franklin owned last year and Ledecky was more than a full second better. So what does that mean for each going forward, and for the U.S. team, and for world swimming?
This was Franklin, of the five gold medals in London, the six golds at the 2013 worlds in Barcelona, including that 200 free.
Ledecky came to Irvine the winner of gold in London in the 800, when she was just 15. In Barcelona, at 16, she won the 400, 800 and 1500 and set two world records in the two distance events. She has since lowered both distance marks — both this past June at a low-key meet in Texas, both by more than two seconds.
On Wednesday, as the Irvine meet got started, Ledecky flirted with the world record and easily won the 800. Franklin, meanwhile, took the 100 free over Simone Manuel, another rising teen talent who, like Ledecky, is headed for Stanford.
In the 100 free prelims, Ledecky had finished 13th.
In Thursday morning’s 200 free prelims, Franklin put together an easy 1:57.83.
Ledecky, meanwhile, went 1:55.75. That was the morning’s fastest showing and, as well, the fourth-fastest time in the world in 2014.
Allison Schmitt, the London 2012 200 gold medalist who curiously failed to qualify for the Barcelona team, missed out, again. She finished in 1:59.5, good only for 11th place.
The 200 free was the first event on Thursday evening’s sun-dappled program. Ledecky drew Lane 4, Franklin Lane 5.
By 100 meters, Ledecky was in the lead.
At 150 meters, Ledecky was riding noticeably higher in the water than Franklin.
The final turn sealed the deal.
Their splits over the back half of the race — that is, the final 100 meters — are instructive:
Ledecky: 29:58, 28.94.
Franklin: 29.94, 29.72.
Franklin’s finishing time of 1:56.4, it must be said, was 10th-fastest of 2014. She swam an excellent race.
It must also be noted that Franklin went on about 75 minutes later Thursday to win the 200 backstroke, in 2:08.38, and that no one came within two seconds of her.
Ledecky’s work for the night, however, was over. She had well and thoroughly won. Perhaps her only disappointment — though there was none of this to be spoken off, at least out loud — is that she had not gone under 1:55. The world-best time this year is 1:55.04, from Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom.
“I wasn’t really worried about the time,” Ledecky said afterward. “I just wanted to get into a good race and swim the best race I could.”
She also said, “The best part about my race was my tempo. I think I did a really good job of increasing my tempo throughout my race and my arms didn’t really die, so I was happy with that.”
Earlier in her career — it seems almost ridiculous to say “earlier in her career” of someone who is 17 but the phraseology is lacking in the English language — Ledecky would go out, race hard, just go, go, go. Now she has speed, endurance and discipline, as she showed Wednesday when she backed off world-record pace about halfway through the 800.
She also, as she proved Thursday, can bring it in a range of events, from the 200 up through distance categories. And, as she showed Wednesday, she is getting better in the 100.
In winning last year’s 200 in Barcelona, Franklin broke 1:55, going 1:54.81. Schmitt’s American record is 1:53.61, set in London in 2012. The world record is 1:52.98, which Italy’s Federica Pellegrini set in Rome at the height of the plastic-suit craze at the 2009 world championships.
Before the meet, Gemmel said he can now tell how Ledecky is swimming just by listening “to the swims,” likening it to the way a concert pianist can hear great music.
“Sometimes during practice he says that doesn’t sound like fast swimming, or that sounds like fast swimming,” Ledecky said.
He said, “I think one of Katie’s biggest growth areas over the last year is she can swim the races multiple ways. I think up until a couple years ago she was most comfortable with and only swam it real hard, going out from the start, but based upon her swims last summer in Barcelona that for various reasons we chose to swim different ways, and for the swims down in Texas, I think that’s her biggest growth area, that she can now swim back half, front half, middle half, every other lap, however we choose to swim it.
“We’ve done that before.”
And now, everyone?
