She did it again. With crowds expected to reach capacity Saturday night at Germantown Indoor Swim Center for Katie Ledecky's final high school swimming meet, the Olympic gold medalist couldn't wait to go fast. She had a lane, so why not?
Ledecky, 17, broke the American record in the women’s 500-yard freestyle Friday night during distance preliminaries of the Washington Metropolitan Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championships. Again.
“I was ready to race, and I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow,” Ledecky said in a phone interview. “I just wanted to see what I could do tonight. I don’t know if I’ll be faster tomorrow.”
The Stone Ridge senior won’t have to be after lowering her own national mark by more than two seconds, touching in a time of 4 minutes 26.58 seconds. She now sits almost four seconds ahead of the next fastest performer in history.
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“I don’t really ever have a goal time for the 500 in general,” Ledecky said. “I wanted to be faster than I was last year just based on how I’ve been training lately.”
Last year, also during prelims, the four-time world champion became the first woman to break the 4:30 barrier in the event, eclipsing Olympian Katie Hoff's mark of 4:30.47 by nearly two seconds. She's gone under 4:30 three times in the last 12 months, including Friday's swim.
Ledecky owns world records in the 400, 800 and 1,500-meter free.
"I just swam the race the right way tonight," she said. "I was actually slower at the halfway point than I was a year ago. I was just stronger on the back half. I'm still finding what works for me and what doesn't work."
Ledecky, a Stanford recruit, would have qualified second for the boys' 500 freestyle finals, trailing only Nation's Capital Swim Club training partner and Georgetown Prep sophomore Matthew Hirschberger (4:17.13). Ledecky's time is the fourth fastest in the area among both boys and girls.
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Ledecky is also scheduled to swim the 200 freestyle on Saturday, an event in which she broke the national high school record at last week's Washington Metro Prep School Swim & Dive League championships, and is within striking distance of Missy Franklin's American record of 1:40.31. Ledecky will also anchor Stone Ridge's 200 and 400 freestyle relays. Stone Ridge is the two-time defending champion in the 200 freestyle relay.
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