BETHESDA, Md. — For three-time Olympian Katie Ledecky, her
incredible journey to winning four more Olympic medals at the Summer Games in
Tokyo began many years ago and winds through several roads.
Among them are two Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of
Washington, a few area pools and the tight-knit community of her Bethesda
hometown.
Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, where she graduated from
high school in 2015, gave Ledecky a hero’s welcome Sept. 17.
She stopped by the all-girls Catholic school in Bethesda to share
stories of her recent Olympic experience, of how she became a remarkable
distance swimmer and to encourage the students in their future aspirations.
But most of all, she wanted to convey her deep gratitude for the
lessons she was taught and the support she received from Stone Ridge going back
almost a decade ago when she first hit the world’s stage in international
swimming competitions.
“It’s so great to be back here at Stone Ridge,” said
Ledecky, emphasizing to the students that it’s where her Olympic story first
unfolded. Ledecky was a rising 15-year-old Stone Ridge sophomore in 2012 when
she won her first gold medal in the women’s 800-meter freestyle race during the
London Olympics.
Wearing her white with navy blue lettering official Team USA
warmup jacket, Ledecky spoke for two hours to more than 750 Stone Ridge
students from prekindergarten to 12th grade in wide-ranging question-and-answer
sessions during three assemblies.
“Thank all of you for the support this summer. It meant so
much to me. It was really impactful. We had no family or friends (able to
attend the Tokyo games due to COVID-19 precautions). … We felt the
cheers,” said Ledecky.
In Tokyo, 24-year-old Ledecky won her 10th Olympic medal for
swimming, adding two gold and two silver medals to her collection. She won the
inaugural gold in the women’s 1,500-meter freestyle swim, a first-time Olympic
event. In the 800-meter freestyle race, she touched the wall at 8:12:57,
repeating her gold medal success from 2012 and 2016 in that race.
Her silver medals came in the 400-meter freestyle and in the
4×200-meter freestyle races. She is the current world record holder in the
400-meter, 800-meter and 1,500-meter freestyle swimming events.
“Yeah, it’s kind of cool. They’re very heavy,” Ledecky
told the Stone Ridge middle schoolers about the shiny Olympic hardware hanging
around her neck after receiving a rousing welcome as she entered the cafeteria.
Students’ questions covered an array of topics such as:
“What were her favorite classes at Stone Ridge?” (math, science, AP
psychology, which she majored in at Stanford University, where she graduated in
2020).
– “What is her swim training schedule? (20
hours per week, in the pool twice a day and dry land training).
– “What’s on her playlist?” (not much country
music, she said with a laugh, but a little bit of everything else – rock, pop,
and oldies.)
During a brief break between talks to students, Ledecky spoke
with the Catholic Standard, Washington’s archdiocesan newspaper.
She reflected on her Catholic faith and what it meant to her
during the difficulties of the pandemic. Yes, she still says the Hail Mary
prayer before every race to calm any nerves, just as she did at the 2012 and
2016 Olympics.
“My faith remains very important in my life, especially the
last two years,” said Ledecky, adding how much being able to
“attend” Mass virtually every week with her family whom she hadn’t
seen in person since December 2019, helped her through the challenges of the
pandemic. “My faith is strong, and I realized more how important that
is.”
The Stanford University Catholic community and her godfather,
Jesuit Father Jim Shea, whose livestream Masses were celebrated at a parish in
Charlotte, North Carolina, kept her going spiritually during the global
shutdown.
She had to pivot her swim training from the university to a
nearby Palo Alto, California, backyard pool and had to cope with the initial
disappointment of the 2020 Olympics being postponed for one year.
The day before returning to Stone Ridge, Ledecky said she was
pleased to pay a similar visit to her elementary school alma mater, Little
Flower School in Bethesda, where she also chatted with students. She spent time
there with another group of longtime supporters — the Immaculate Heart of Mary
sisters who taught her and Msgr. Peter Vaghi, the pastor of Little Flower
Parish.
She praised her Team USA teammate Phoebe Bacon, a fellow Stone
Ridge and Little Flower School alumnae, who competed in her first Olympics,
coming in fifth place in the women’s 200-meter backstroke.
“It was great having her on the team. It was probably the
most time I’ve ever got to spend with her,” she said. “She brought so
much energy.”
Among her answers to all the questions posed to her, Ledecky said
she began swimming at age 6, because her older brother, Michael, swam for their
neighborhood community pool, and she always looked up to him.
She played other sports such as basketball and soccer early on,
but eventually became singularly focused on swimming. “I just loved being
in the water,” she said.
Ledecky told the girls she was driven by always setting new goals
for herself and said the best coaching advice she received still resonates with
her: “Stay true to your goals. Put in the work. … enjoy the journey, do
not just focus on the end result.”
“I’ve taken that to heart and enjoyed the training it
takes,” said Ledecky, adding that time management was a large part of
successfully balancing a busy academic and athletic life, a valuable tool she
began practicing while at Stone Ridge that came to serve her well in college.
“I learned that here and used every minute that I
could” to finish homework, study ahead for exams, as well as get plenty of
rest, but also spend precious time with friends, family and on her other
hobbies — playing the piano, chess and Scrabble, she said.
Her proudest moments, she said, are not the Olympic medals, but
the happiness she’s found in the communities she has been a part of over the
years — Stone Ridge, Stanford University and Bethesda.
“Yes, (the medals) are heavy, but they are small relative to
all the hard work from my family, my parents, my brother,” she said.
“(The medals) are a great symbol (of the work). It takes a village. I wish
I could give medals to all of you.”
As she prepares for the next chapter of her life, Ledecky said
her immediate plans include possibly starting graduate school, definitely
preparing to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and then it’s a big maybe
about the Los Angeles summer games in 2028.
Beyond that, she’s not sure what the future holds. But swimming
in some fashion, she said, will always be a passion of hers.
“I’m lucky to have this great community,” she said.
“I couldn’t do any of it without their support.”
