NANTERRE, France — Katie Ledecky doesn’t care about every single record she breaks. After all, there are so many it’d be impossible to even track them all.
But there was one streak she started back on Aug. 3, 2012, and she didn’t want it to end here Saturday night. Because that was the day she won her very first Olympic gold medal. She was 15 years old, the youngest swimmer on the U.S. team. So quiet. Kind of awkward. Very shy.
But that day, when she touched the wall to win the women’s 800-meter freestyle final, she got to be the best and fastest swimmer in the world.