Australia rivalry highlights 1st night in Olympic pool

America’s latest swim sensation enters the Olympic Aquatics Stadium this weekend chasing history.

Ledecky has a stroke modeled on Phelps’; he has described her, complimentarily, as a “stud”.

Because Ledecky has such a heavy schedule – competing on at least six days, possibly seven if she swims on the 400-meter freestyle relay – she won’t walk in the Opening Ceremony Friday night like she did four years ago.

The decorated swimmer also attributed her successful swimming career to her faith-filled education in Bethesda, Maryland.

Her paternal uncle Jonathan J. Ledecky, who is an investment banker and majority owner of the New York Islanders, purchased clothing company American Apparel after the company’s founder Dov Charney started having legal trouble amid accusations of creating an unsafe work environment for the models he hired on photo shoots.

It is not just Ledecky’s margins of victory that are astonishing. If the US wins the late-night final, she would get a medal, too. “But I don’t think it her matters to her today”, Gemmell said.

Meyer, who in 1968 won all three races in Mexico City, said it’s tough to sweep those events because swimmers now specialize in each one.

Since the previous Olympics, Ledecky has traveled internationally, including to world championships in Spain and Russian Federation and the Pan Pacific Championships in Australia. She’ll be competing for the women’s 200-, 400- and 800-meter freestyle races, where she now holds world records for dubbed as the “Ledecky Slam”.

In an interview with Catholic Standard before she flew to Brazil for the Rio 2016 Olympics, Ledecky disclosed that her Catholic faith plays an important role in her preparations and competitions.

There is also the distinct possibility of her breaking at least one of her world records here. I’ve never seen a female swimmer like that. “We always come here to win no matter what our record has been in the past”. “I’d be tight and dead”.

The women’s 4×100 relay shapes up as the USA versus Australia, which won gold four years ago in London and in 2004.

“Technically, she swims a distance race like it’s a sprint”, Evans said.

“These are guys who ended up winning gold medals at the Olympics”, said Urbanchek, who has mentored both of Ledecky’s coaches. She started swimming at age 6, following in her older brother Michael’s footsteps.

After summer ended the siblings joined the year-round program. She’s like a bull in a stall, and someone just has to open the door for her to let go. Or that she’d be comfortably in the lead after the first 400.

Phelps is the most-medaled Olympian in history, with 22 all-time medals that he’s spread between the 2004 Athens Games, 2008 Beijing Games and 2012 London Games. She won the 200 and 400 freestyles and finished second in the 800. Phelps will be competing in the 200 meter butterfly, 200 meter individual medley, and 100 meter butterfly.

For most fans who tune in once every four years, the calculus is easy: Phelps hops in the pool and he wins. And Evans says she likes the legend’s chances to add a little more gold to his trophy case in what he claims will be his last Olympic run.

“I think that absolutely allows her to compete at the level she does and do it so consistently”, he said.

NBC has a handy guide listing when Ledecky will swim her three individual events, starting around 2:30 p.m. Sunday with the preliminary heats in the 400-meter freestyle.

But Ledecky continued her community service work that she did in high school, including volunteering with the homeless and Wounded Warriors Project. She still keeps her goal times written down somewhere, she just won’t share the location. “They are lost souls”.