Katie Ledecky Becoming Legendary at 18

August 9, 2015

 Every so often, you catch a star before it has reached its full potential, and right now, American swimmer Katie Ledecky is that star. She is currently swimming in the FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia. As of Sunday, August 9th, she has won five gold medals, completed a sweep of the 200, 400, 800, and 1500 freestyles, and anchoring the 4x200m freestyle. She also broke her world record in the 800m freestyle by 3.61 seconds. She is only 18 years old, incredible!

When I say she is a rising star, she already is a star in the swimming world, but wait until she competes in the 2016 Olympics next year in Rio. If she can continue to pull off amazing feats like this next year, she will become Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz famous. If you don't remember the last Olympics in London, at the ripe old age of 15, Katie swam for the US team and won the only event she was entered in, the 800m freestyle.

Ledecky has been on such an upward trend that it is jaw-dropping to see this kind of accession. She improved her results since the last championships in Barcelona, where she won four golds and set two world records. In Kazan, she beat the field in the 400 by 3.89 seconds, the 800 by 10.26 seconds, and 1500 by 14.66 seconds, which eclipsed her world record in preliminaries and the final. Her closest race was the 200 freestyle, when she came from behind to win by .16 seconds.

Ledecky is pulling off incredible times, and at this point, she is creating comparisons to men. In April of this year, she matched Michael Phelps's time in the 400-meter preliminary, and her latest time in the 1500-meter record time has only been beaten by 80 men in the world this year. "It's really neat to say that you've done something nobody has done before," Ledecky said.  I'll enjoy this for a few days, and I'll get back to work, and hopefully, there's more to come.

These performances do not come along too often, and elite athletes like Ledecky are even rarer. It is very inspiring to see her compete and watch the potential of the human body. Keep an eye out for her, and when the next Olympics come around, she will be shining so bright the world will be hers.