Katie Ledecky makes Olympic history again, winning 800m freestyle gold for fourth time

NANTERRE, France —Katie Ledecky, the greatest female swimmer of all time, won her fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle Saturday night, completing her week with her fourth medal in Paris and 14th in her Olympic career. 

Ledecky’s time of 8:11.04 defeated Australian Ariarne Titmus. American Paige Madden took the bronze. Titmus and Madden each put up personal bests, but it wasn't enough.  Titmus claimed the silver in 8:12.29, while Madden swam 8:13.00. 

This was a victory of the moment, but also one 12 years in the making. Ledecky first won the Olympic 800 in a big surprise as a 15-year-old water bug in London in 2012. She won it by a mile in Rio in 2016. She held off Titmus to win it again in Tokyo in 2021. And now this, the four-peat, the first time a woman has won any swimming race in four consecutive Olympics.

Michael Phelps is the only other person to do it, in the men’s 200 individual medley, from 2004-2016. 

Her response earlier this summer to the possibility of joining Phelps as the only swimmer to win an Olympic event four times was vintage Ledecky.

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“I was like, wait, I would? These things kind of go in one ear and out the other. I had thought that there were maybe a few others, but I think I’m getting it confused with the three-peat in Tokyo with a few others,” she said, with a smile and a shrug. 

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“These things, I hear them, I see them, but I don’t really focus on them. I just stay focused on my own goals, my goals are very time focused and splits focused and technically focused. The rest is what it is and you guys (journalists) can write about it, and you guys can focus on it, but personally I’m just going to stay focused on my own goals.”

With the victory, Ledecky won her ninth Olympic gold medal, the most ever by an American woman in any Olympic sport. It also ties her with Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina for the most golds won by any woman in any sport in Olympic history. Latynina competed at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympics. 

Ledecky's 14 total medals also are the most ever won by an American woman in Olympic history in any sport, and the most ever won by a female Olympic swimmer from any nation.

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The 800 put the finishing touches on another stellar Olympics for the 27-year-old Ledecky. On the first day of swimming here, she won the bronze medal in the 400 freestyle behind Titmus and Canadian Summer McIntosh. Then later in the week, she won the gold in the 1,500 freestyle and the silver as part of the U.S. women’s 4x200 freestyle relay.

While Ledecky is now finished at the Paris Games, she is not done with the Summer Olympics. She has said numerous times that her goal is to compete on home soil at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

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