Katie Ledecky, by excelling at 25, outswims history once again

When Katie Ledecky won her 50th-plus consecutive 800m freestyle to open this week’s world championships trials, in her fastest time in four years, she achieved a feat lesser celebrated than her seven Olympic gold medals and 14 world records. But just as unmatched.

She extended her dominance past her 25th birthday, which for various reasons, none of the female distance swimming stars before her did. Many were in eras with a lack of incentive to compete past high school (pre-Title IX) or college (pre-Michael Phelps, fewer U.S. swimmers had financial and training opportunities to excel as professionals).

As Ledecky piled up blowout victories and gold medals over the last decade, at some point questions about her place in history discarded like leaves off an autumn tree. The last point of contention, for Ledecky and any transcendent athlete, is longevity.

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Ledecky barreled through that. If not at the Tokyo Olympics, then in the eight months since.

She didn’t set goal times for the next Olympics, like she did before to start a new cycle, but instead put her head down and began training under new coach Anthony Nesty and with the best U.S. male distance swimmers.

“We talk a lot about improvement,” Ledecky, working with a different coach for each of her four Olympic cycles, said Tuesday. “Of course, improvement looks a little different for me than some other people given that my times are really hard to improve. I’ve acknowledged that, and I’ve learned that over the years.”

History is against Ledecky continuing to post times that are faster than any other woman, yet she continues to do it.

Janet Evans, the benchmark in women’s distance swimming before Ledecky, retired just before