An 18 Year Old American Swimmer Who Destroyed the Competition And Broke a World Record Without Even Trying Is For Sure The Next Michael Phelps

“Hey, where’d everyone go?”

Business Insider - Eighteen-year-old American Katie Ledecky broke her own world record in the 1,500-meter freestyle on Monday morning during a preliminary round at the FINA World Swimming Championship in Kazan, Russia — a swim in which she didn’t even race as hard as she could. “My coach told me to swim the first 900m easy, build over the next 300, then the final 300 was my choice and to be honest, it felt pretty easy,” she said after the race. “I wasn’t kicking much and I think breaking the world record is testament to the hard work I have put in and the shape I am in right now. I am pretty shocked that I was able to do that. “I was barely even focusing on this morning’s swim. I was just so relaxed,” she added. The Bethesda, Maryland, native burst onto the scene as a 15-year-old prodigy at the 2012 London Olympics, winning gold in the 800m freestyle. She has since set eight individual world records across three events, becoming one of the most dominant athletes in the sport at age 18. Ledecky’s time of 15 minutes 27.71 seconds on Monday morning bested her former world-record time of 15:28.26 that she set at the 2014 Pan Pacific Championship. She finished 26 1/2 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher in the preliminary heat — about one Olympic pool’s length. In 2015, no other swimmer has come within 10 seconds of her time, and at the World Championships, she has also already won gold in the 400m freestyle.

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This is the cockiest and most impressive thing I’ve read in forever. This chick breaking her own world record, while not even trying. Like come fucking on. It just keeps building too, because no other swimmer in the fucking world has gotten within 10 seconds of her time, and she beat her own time while doing the doggie paddle. That’s so cocky it’s insane. Way to crush the hopes and dreams of every other swimmer. She just won by entire pool length, and instead of saying the normal “yea, it was a good race, blah blah blah” she dropped the hammer and said “I beat them all with my hands tied behind my back”.

So I guess we should learn the name Katie Ledecky because she seems poised to be the next big USA Olympic hero. I kinda love when that happens. When someone in a random sport wins over the country every 4 years by beating the shit out of the rest of the world. I can’t wait for Katie to lay out all those other countries and have 100 gold medals around her neck and then look them in the eyes and tell them she did it without even trying.

 

h/t Lucas