Nobody can be blamed for not paying too much attention to swimming in a when the Olympics aren’t going on, but whenever Katie Ledecky gets in the pool, I’ll make an exception.
Ledecky had her first race as a pro yesterday, and she flexed in her best event, the 1,500 freestyle, by shattering her own world record by a full five seconds.
Ledecky first set the world record in this event back in 2013, when she swam it in 15:36.53, nearly 10 seconds faster than the previous record holder’s mark. She broke it again in 2014 (15:34.23), and then again a few months later (15:28.36), and then broke it two more times in back-to-back races in 2015 (15:27.71 and 15:25.48). Her latest time, 15:20.48 puts her a full 16 seconds clear of her original record-breaking time. This is nuts. Katie Ledecky is totally nuts.