This girl is ridiculous. I don't think I've ever seen someone in the Olympics just bend over the competition and take them to pound town like she has. She has to be some type of robot or cyborg sent from the future.

I was thinking the same thing. She is not human. I don't watch any swimming outside of the Olympics, but I've never seen a margin of victory that big before and she is only 19 years old.

She is absolutely unreal! I love watching her swim. She is the real deal

She beat her challengers in the 800M freestyle by a country mile. It was a laughable distance of victory.

Hmm. Katie Ledecky is such a wonderful champion....she must be a LA Tech grad...

T-1000 submersible version.

Ledecky is amazing. But I will say she's swimming in an event that just hasn't captured the swimming world, and all the best swimmers avoid the longer races like the plague. It's been similar on the men's side too with the long races - the Chinese guy won Gold at the 2012 Games by a huge margin. Ledecky is the first great distance swimmer since Janet Evans almost 30 years ago (Evans' times from the late 80's might have got her a medal this year).

I think that will change in the future. Ledecky's dominance will probably show the great swimmers that it's cool to swim the longer races too. The one thing I don't believe about Ledecky is her age. She looks closer to 39 to me than 19.

Evans 1989 WR was 8:16.22, which would have been a bronze this year. It's interesting to look at the WR progression in the event. From 1957 to 1997 the WR time dropped by almost 2 minutes. From 1977 to 2008 it dropped only 23 seconds. Ledecky has shaved another 10 seconds in the last three years. So in about 60 years, the total has dropped over 2 and a half minutes. On the men's side, over the same period, the time has come down only 1:43.

Ledecky's time would have been the men's WR as recently as 1976. That's impressive. For perspective, Flo Jo still holds the women's 100m WR set in 1988 at 10.49. Men have been running faster than that since 1921. For more perspective at distance, the women's 800 meter track record has not changed since 1983 and that time is slower than the then 1912 Men's WR.

Just watch Tori Bowie win her race. Will race for the gold tomorrow. I think she ran for Southern Miss.

The Ethiopian woman who won the 10K today in track set a world record with a time that would have won the NCAA men's 10K at several recent collegiate championships (29:11.something). But track and field is a different deal than swimming as it's just been riddled with cheaters who might or might not have got banned, but they still hold a lot of the records. I think most of the records from the 1980's and 1990's that still stand today are all drug tainted (such as Flo Jo).

Ledecky is a different deal though. If she wanted to, she could be an Olympic champion in the 100 free too by 2020. There isn't a track runner in the world - now or ever I don't think - who could have won the 100 or 200 and also a distance event within two successive Olympics.

(08-12-2016 09:58 PM)HogDawg Wrote:  She beat her challengers in the 800M freestyle by a country mile.

I honestly caught the tail end of her race and thought she raced by herself....lol.

Basically she is a Phelps for women's swimming.

The difference is Phelps was able to race in 8 events during his early years that is why his metal totals are so high. He's going on 28 Olympic metals in 4 Olympics with 8 metals in both 2004/2008.

She could very well set the women's record for medals with another good Olympics or two.