Katie Ledecky & Women’s 4x100 Freestyle Relay Kick Off Paris 2024 Swimming With Medals

NANTERRE, France — Katie Ledecky knows what it’s like to have awards hanging on ribbons around her neck. The 27-year-old swimming phenom has won more Olympic and world championship medals than any female swimmer in history. And in early May 2024, President Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In front of a roaring crowd at the Olympic Games Paris 2024, Ledecky opened the first night of swimming by adding another medal to her vast collection: a bronze in the women’s 400-meter freestyle.

It’s her third Olympic medal in the event, adding to gold from 2016 and silver from 2018, and her 11th Olympic medal total. It’s also her first Olympic bronze medal.

“I would have liked to have been a little faster tonight,” Ledecky said, referring to her 4:00.86 time, over four seconds off her Olympic record set at the 2016 Rio Games. “Been faster a few times this season. But you can't complain with a medal, so happy to get the metal.”

“You all know I'm pretty tough on myself,” she added later in the evening, “so there are always things I want to do better, even in my great races.”

Ariarne Titmus from Australia defended her Olympic gold medal in the women’s 400 free but was over two seconds off her world-record time. Canada’s Summer McIntosh claimed the silver. In the past two years, Titmus and McIntosh have swum the four fastest times ever in the 400 free.

Ledecky and Titmus have battled in the 400 free since the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, when the Australian defeated Ledecky, then the defending Olympic gold medalist and world record holder in the event. Since then, Titmus has twice lowered the world record and is the only woman to have swum the 400 free in under 3:56. The world record currently stands at 3:55.38. McInstosh, at 17, is a relative newcomer on the 400 free scene.

“I wouldn't consider it a rivalry,” Ledecky said of her relationship with Titmus. “It's a friendship if anything. We have a lot of respect for each other, and we love competing against each other. It brings the best out of each of us. I'm sure it pushes each of us in training knowing that we have each other to race at these kinds of meets.”

In Paris, Ledecky had hoped to reclaim the 400 freestyle Olympic gold medal that she won in 2016. In September 2021 after the Tokyo Olympic Games, she moved to Florida in to train with the University of Florida pro team under coach Anthony Nesty. The team includes Bobby Finke and Kieran Smith. Finke won Olympic gold medals in the men’s 800 and 1,500 freestyles in Tokyo, and Smith claimed bronze in the 400 free, also in Tokyo.

By moving to Florida, Ledecky could train with the world’s fastest male distance freestylers. When asked about Ledecky earlier this year, Finke grew wide-eyed.

“The elevation of the intensity, the way we take practices is higher and higher and higher,” he said.

When talking about what she has gained from her Florida teammates, Ledecky grew emotional.

“I've gotten so much  training with them,” she said, choked up with tears streaming down her cheeks. “It’s just a really special group, and that's why, that's why … I love the sport so much. I get to spend every day with people like Bobby and Kieran and Nesty and everyone that believes in me and pushes me.”

She paused, gathering herself, then continued.

“The confidence I was able to have today is a testament to them. Just knowing that I race these really fast boys every day gives me the confidence to go up next to really great racers. So, yeah, I love this sport so much I get emotional about it, and I love those people, and that's what carries me through and keeps me going.”

The U.S. women have won at least one medal in the 400 free in every Olympiad since the event was introduced in 1924 (except in 1980 when the U.S. boycotted the Games).

Ledecky is favored to win the women’s 800 (heats on August 2 and the final on August 3) and 1,500 free (heats on July 30, final on July 31). She is also expected to compete in the women’s 4x200 free relay on August 1 — an event in which she has won two Olympic medals to date (2016 and 2020).

Should she win three more Olympic medals, she will sit second overall for most Olympic medals won by a woman, just four shy of gymnast Larisa Latynina who competed in gymnastics from 1956-1964.

Less than an hour after Ledecky won bronze, 4x100-meter freestyle relay newcomers Gretchen Walsh, Kate Douglass, and Torri Huske, and Olympic veteran Simone Manuel threw down an American record (3:30.20) in the relay, claiming the silver medal.

Ahead of the Americans, Australia won its fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the event, with China in third.

After their bronze-medal performance at the Tokyo Olympic Games three years ago (3:32.81), behind Australia and Canada, the American women set their sights on the American record here in Paris.

“It was a goal of ours to break the American record and get as close to Australians as we could,” said Manuel. “So we're really happy with our performance.”

Huske, Walsh, and Douglass got their first taste of Olympic hardware in the 4x100 freestyle relay. Earlier in the evening, Walsh set the Olympic record in the 100-meter butterfly semifinals and brought her “front end” speed into the relay.

For Manuel — a two-time Olympic veteran who won four Olympic medals at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and a silver in the 4x100 free relay in Tokyo — this relay marked a satisfying return to Olympic competition after she struggled with overtraining in the lead-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

“It just feels good to be back here, honestly,” said Manuel, who anchored the relay — a roll she has not had for five years. “I didn't know if I would ever be performing at this level again, so just to have the full circle moment of being on this relay again, from 2021 to now, in a happier and healthier place I think is really special.”

Team USA has won a medal in the women’s 4x100 free relay in every Olympic Games since 1920, when the U.S. first sent female swimmers to the Games. The only year they missed: 1980 when the U.S. boycotted the Olympic Games. The American women last won gold in the 4x100 free relay at the 2000 Games.

Swimming resumes on Sunday, with Walsh going for her first individual Olympic gold medal in the women’s 100-meter butterfly.

“This morning, not that I was disappointed in the swim, but I was really nervous, and I needed to get that swim out of the way and just leave the nerves in the pool,” Walsh said of her first day competing at an Olympic Games. “I think I did that because I was able to come out tonight and use my front-end speed and just get to the wall and put up a really good time for myself.

“And I think it sets me up really well for tomorrow night.”