Katie Ledecky Biography

Katie Ledecky is the American swimmer who dominated women’s freestyle swimming at the 2016 Summer Olympics, setting two world records on her way to four gold medals.

Katie Ledecky was born in Washington, DC in 1997. She began swimming at age six and it was soon clear she was a special talent: by the time she entered high school at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, she was swimming in top-class national meets. She surprised the nation by qualifying for the 800-meter freestyle at the London Olympics at age 15, then surprised the world by winning the gold medal.

Over the next four years she went on an unprecedented tear, winning freestyle races at distances ranging from 200 meters to 1500 meters. She set American records at 500 yards, 1000 yards and 1650 yards, and set world records at 400, 800 and 1500 meters. She won four golds at the 2013 World Championships (400, 800, 1500-meter freestyle and the 800-meter freestyle relay) and then won five golds at the 2015 World Championships, adding the 200-meter freestyle to her 2013 haul. She was named the USA Swimming Athlete of the Year in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Katie Ledecky graduated from high school in 2015 and committed to swim at Stanford University, but took a year off to train for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janiero. There she won gold in the 200, 400 and 800-meter freestyle and the 4×200 relay, and silver in the 4×100 relay. In the process she set world records at 400 meters (in 3:56:46) and 800 meters (in 8:04:79, almost two seconds lower than the previous world record). After her performance in the 800, The Guardian called her “a tremendous machine in flirtation with the outer limits of human performance as we know it.”