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Thanks to Travis Knop for contributing this report about Katie Ledecky‘s World Record swim in the 800 freestyle at the 2015 FINA World Championships:
Some people watch Katie Ledecky race and think: “Yeah, I could swim 200 meters like that.” Those swimmers are all either world-class males, or liars. Oh, and Katie is not swimming the 200; she is swimming the 800 free. Her World Championship 800m free HAS to make the short list of best human aquatic performances. Ever. Bar none.
Katie Ledecky swam 8:07.39 this month. She now has 9 of the 10 fastest swims ever in the event. Rebecca Adlington is #8 with a super-suited 8:14.10. The next fastest? Jaz Carlin’s 8:15.54 at last year’s European Champs. Ledecky outswam the best by half a second… per lap… after lap… after lap… over and over. For 16 laps.
Who else owns a World Record by a full second every hundred? Not even Michael Phelps has that dominance in a single event. Katie Ledecky’s 800 is a pure spectacle, on par with the Triple Crown or Roger Bannister’s 4-minute mile.*
* (Last year Sarah Sjostrom crushed 0.63 off the 50m fly WR, which was mind-boggling. BUT, that is an occasionally-contested, non-Olympic event. She may have had some outdoor wind in her favor too.)
How does Ledecky do it? Here are five observations from the full race video. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x30w0dd(Sad how an American swims the best 800m of all time, and still you can only find the full video on British broadcast).
Pre-race rituals:
On the blocks she gives each bicep a kiss: left, right, left. It brings to mind Phelps’ famous three arm swings on the blocks before every race.
Turnover:
Her stroke rate is what makes the difference. Ledecky’s stroke count is 40-41 strokes/lap for the first 400 and ~39 strokes/lap for the second half. Lauren Boyle had about the same stroke count but finished 10 seconds behind (which was still a valiant silver medal swim!). Lesson for distance coaches: cutting the least efficient parts of a stroke may get better results than maximizing overall distance per stroke.
Oxygen is your friend:
Ledecky breathes to the right every stroke, and breathes her first stroke off every wall. The coaches’ refrain “don’t breathe off the wall!” is a bit like your mother saying you can’t swim for 25 minutes after eating a grape. It may be right for some youngsters, but still entirely arbitrary.
That kick though:
Ledecky’s kick looks torrential from aerial and side camera angles, but underwater shots reveal only a two-beat kick. A big left-foot downkick helps her rotate and breathe to the right. Otherwise she kicks just enough to keep her legs atop the water. (The last 50 is another story, see below.) The lesson is not “kicking doesn’t matter”. The lesson is: kick in a way that complements your overall stroke and body position.
Pacing:
Earlier in the week, Ledecky came from behind to win the 200 free with a final split of 29.33.
For the 800, she held splits of 30.3 to 31.1. Then came four extra kicks off the last wall, and a speedboat finale. Her final split – 28.41 – is just plain scary. Ledecky was saving up for that while she built an 8-second lead on the world’s best distance swimmers.
It is hard to say much about this performance, because if you were paying attention your jaw should be on the floor. The race speaks for itself. If Katie Ledecky never amazes us again (unlikely), we have already been gifted with a model of distance excellence.
The crazy thing to me is that for a swimmer who has been on the scene winning everything she swims since 2012, she is still just becoming a public figure. Her 2012 performance was (rightly) overshadowed by Missy Franklin and Michael Phelps – who both had amazing games. But 2016 in Rio will be when Katie is introduced as the new Janet Evans – and really the new and improved version who can go distance and speed events like few others.
Thank you Based Knop
Also I don’t think that she’s kissing her biceps haha but rather pushing her goggles tighter on her eyes with her arms.
Hahaha… is THAT what she was doing? I’d think fingers would work better. It seemed uncharacteristically cocky for her. Though soon I expect to see Lochte taking selfies on the blocks before every race…
All in complete humor, but the image of Ryan taking selfies before diving into the pool is hysterically funny to imagine! He would probably get a laugh at it too! Well done, TEA. 🙂
THANK YOU so much for posting the link to the video. I have been wanting to watch that race in its entirety and have been waiting in vain on youtube. What an incredible swim!
I’m going to have to watch for Katie kissing her biceps before each race, LOL! That sounds like something a bodybuilder would do before a double-bicep pose in the mirror! 😉
She’s not kissing her biceps; she’s just pressing in her goggles!
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/8/14/ledecky-fan-kazan-postcard/
I think she would’ve been 7th overall in the 800 free relay at junior worlds if she swam it individually.
I don’t know how much the wind affected Sjostrom’s WR. She didn’t duplicate the time at worlds but she did go a 24.69 inside in April of this year. She was in better shape at Swedish Nationals when she set the WR than when she went 24.69. I don’t think the wind could have helped her more than .1. 24.5 is still insane.
Katie Ledecky’s performance was no doubt awesome, but Sjostrom’s 50 fly WR is I think even more dominant. The WR was broken by 0.64 second and the previous record was a super-suit record. Currently, her next closest competitor’s best time is 25.23 – a difference of 0.8 second over 50 meters! Also, the fly WR is only 0.7 second slower than the 50 free WR which is highly contested. You put that difference on the men’s side (even with non super suit times), and you’d have a 21.89 50 fly WR. Worlds was won in 22.97 and nobody’s gone sub 22.8 in the last 2 years.
All said, there’s pretty crazy talent on the women’s side. Hoping with Phelps’ return… Read more »
The two events can’t be compared. Nobody trains for the 50 fly. It is a non Olympic event. So when we see a huge time drop, yes we will be surprised, but only because so few swimmers even care for the event. Whereas the 800 is an Olympic event and swimmers change their schedule to perform better in the 800. Carlin dropped the 1500 I think to focus on the 800, nobody does that for 50.
Well, I would argue much less people train for the 800 free than the 100 fly or the 50 free which are both highly correlated to a fast 50 fly.
IMHO, Sjostrom’s WR 50 fly doesn’t translate to the 100 fly or 50 free.
She swam 55.6 and 24.9 at worlds.
When she swam 24.4, she was 56-mid at the same meet. I appreciate her innovation in the 50 fly as much as anybody (I believe my verbal reaction was “WHUUUUUUUUUT?!”), but that is not a technique you can use for 100m.
What was her innovation in the 50 Fly?
Most of all, head down the entire way. I was a butterflier, and I never practiced it with no intention of breathing.
Because she never picks her head up, she doesn’t have to pull her shoulders up as high. That affects the undulation of her entire spine, hips, and legs. When she goes all out for a 50, her rhythm is timed for maximum forward motion, not “maximum forward motion… while getting her mouth above water.”