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CHRISTINE BRENNAN
Katie Ledecky

Brennan: Long or short, Katie Ledecky stands alone

Christine Brennan
USA TODAY Sports

OMAHA —  The greatness of Katie Ledecky washes over the Olympic world not in split-second intervals, but in minutes, even days.

Katie Ledecky during the women's 400 freestyle preliminary heats in the U.S. Olympic swimming team trials at CenturyLink Center on June 27.

Ledecky’s grandeur grows not with any one race, but with all of them put together. It’s not just the 400-meter freestyle, which Ledecky won with a scintillating time of 3 minutes, 58.98 seconds Monday night at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials to qualify for the Rio Olympic Games. It’s the 200 free on Wednesday. And the 100 free and 800 free later in the week. And, even the 50 free, that splashy, speedy outlier, at week’s end.

The swimmer who could become only the third U.S. woman in history to win four gold medals at a single Olympic Games — most likely the 200, 400 and 800, and the 4x200 freestyle relay — clearly is in this for the long haul.

“Obviously the 400 and the 800 are kind of my ‘go to’ races and the races I really, really love,” she said, “but I do also really like the 100 and the 200, and I want to do just as well in those.”

The 400 was a perfect place to start this week. On world-record pace until the last lap, with the crowd roaring, the 19-year-old from Bethesda, Md., found herself thinking just one thing. “Rio, Rio, Rio.”

Katie Ledecky is dominant force in swimming

Often, however, the totality of Ledecky’s effort is more interesting than some of the long races she swims. It has been said many times that witnessing an 800 freestyle race is the sports equivalent of watching paint dry. It’s more than eight minutes of swimming back and forth, back and forth, with a bell ringing before the last 100 meters in case the swimmer has forgotten how far she has traveled.

With Ledecky in the water, though, it’s the best paint-drying spectacle ever.

None other than William and Kate, the prince and duchess, have witnessed Ledecky’s prowess. Four years ago at the London Olympics the royal couple joined many of their fellow Brits at the swimming venue on the evening of Aug. 3, 2012, to watch countrywoman Rebecca Adlington win her second consecutive Olympic gold in the 800 free.

Soon, they couldn’t help but notice the all-but-unknown 15-year-old American waterbug opening a huge lead in the next lane. The race was over not long after it began. Ledecky, not Adlington, won the gold, with the British veteran a distant third, more than 51/2 seconds behind.

That was the moment Ledecky became unstoppable. Since then, she has become the fastest female distance swimmer in history. She holds the world record in the 400, 800 and 1,500 (not an Olympic event for women). At last year’s world championships, she won those three events, plus the 200 free, and she holds the fastest times in the world this year in three Olympic events — the 200, 400 and 800. She’s also the second-fastest American in the 100 free this year.

Her range is unprecedented. It’s as if a marathon runner moonlighted as a sprinter. She is affably relentless, a swimming machine who delightedly says her daily workouts are “whatever (her coach, Bruce Gemmell) writes on the board for practice.”

In a sport that thrives on repetition, even boredom, Ledecky has maintained a childlike sense of whimsy and awe. When she arrived here and saw her face superimposed on the outside of the arena, she did the only thing that made sense.

“I took a selfie with it!”

But don’t be fooled. This is one tough customer, one of the finest swimmers, male or female, America has ever produced.

“As I’ve gotten faster over time, I’ve expected more of myself in practices,” she said. “Every year sort of builds on the next one and you always want to do better the next year than you did the last year. So I’m always motivated, working toward my goals, and the goals I’ve had through this year have been the goals that I’ve been thinking about for the past two, three years, and it’s time to start working and hitting those goals.”

That time began Monday. When it ends, no one knows.

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