Katie Ledecky made history on Saturday, becoming the first woman to win four titles at a single U.S. Olympic Team Trials thanks to her women’s 800-meter freestyle victory in Indianapolis.
Ledecky finished in 8:14.12, easily topping Paige Madden’s second-place mark of 8:20.71. She will now be competing in the 400m freestyle, the 800m freestyle and the 1500m freestyle in addition to the 4x200m freestyle relay when she gets to the Paris Games, which start on July 26.
With her work at the trials now done, Ledecky is fully focused on the Olympics.
“It’s time to get back to work,” Ledecky said. “Got to get ready for Paris.”
Ledecky has won the gold medal in the 800m freestyle at each of the past three Olympics. Should she prevail once again this year, she would join Michael Phelps as the only swimmers to win four straight gold medals in the same Olympic event.
In other action Saturday, Kate Douglass took the women’s 200m individual medley with a time of 2:06.79. She will also be participating in the 200m breaststroke and the 100m freestyle in Paris.
“I feel the goal coming into this meet was to try to win all three events, but I didn’t really think I'd be able to achieve that,” Douglass said. “So I’m really happy I did.”
Alex Walsh came in just behind Douglass at 2:07.86, with Isabel Ivey rounding out the top three at 2:10.09.
A five-time gold medalist at the Tokyo Games, Caeleb Dressel won the men’s 100m butterfly on Saturday. His 50.19 bested Thomas Heilman (50.80) and Dare Rose (50.84).
