Katie Ledecky starts new Olympic cycle with different world championships lineup

Katie Ledecky will be plenty busy at the world championships that start next week, just not at the record level of mileage we saw in Tokyo. She’sslated to swim a total of 5,600 meters, a drop down from her 6,200 at the Olympics last year, an unprecedented total for the Games.

Ledecky made the team for worlds in Budapest in all of her usual events, winning the 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m frees at the U.S. trials like she has done every time dating to 2014.

Yet three days after trials ended, the USA Swimming roster was changed. Ledecky was dropped from the 200m free. Turns out, she made that decision last fall.

In one of her first conversations with new coach Anthony Nesty, Ledecky said she wanted to zero in a little bit more on distance events going forward. That combined with the world championships schedule, having the 200m free semifinals and 1500m free final in the same session as in past years, led to the ultimate call.

“I wanted to not have a double this year and see what I could do with a mile and just kind of lighten my load a little bit,” she said last week before flying to a pre-worlds team training camp in Croatia.

Ledecky still swam the 200m free at trials because she wants to be part of the 4x200m free relay. She swam the relay at every major international meet dating to 2013 and is expected to do so again in Budapest. The last time she didn’t swim the individual 200m free at a major meet was the 2013 Worlds (not counting 2019 Worlds, when she withdrew while ill).

Whether Ledecky re-adds the 200m free in future years is TBD.

“We’ll kind of see how things go this summer,” said Ledecky, who at 25 is now older than any woman to win a world championships distance freestyle race (400m, 800m and 1500m). “I continue