SO IMPRESSIVE - only two men beat her time in the 1500. 3:03 final 300 to finish - and you are right - high head position and great body position aren't mutually exclusive!

She's incredible to watch. continually blown away.

---

DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

hard to know from a static image but is she doing single beat kick half body fly (one half of body is doing what it would do on a given phase of fly and the other half of body is doing the opposite phase and the rotation of the hips takes care of the rest)

I have no idea what that means, sorry. You can Google her races on YouTube from this weekend and decide for yourself. Plenty of footage to choose from.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

She is my absolutely favorite swimmer to watch. Way better than Phelps was. Phelps was amazing, but Ledecky is so far beyond any of her peers, it is mind blowing. Phelps was a little bit better than everyone across his events. Ledecky is in another pool better than everyone else in her events.

As I'm watching the 1500, the girl in second, who I've watched swim in the LSC for 5+ years, comes in second WAY back...to get the bell, with 100 to go. CRAZY.

Light years ahead and you know it's from outworking everyone for years and years and years. She's incredible.

---

DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

Why???
She probably won whatever she was competing by a lot!!! ahaha

She's so impressive - best technique ever...good genetics....perfect

I really don’t like that comparison, they’re just.... different. Phelps was the best in the world in 3 of the 5 disciplines, and we’ll never know how good he really was because he had to drop events. He was quite possibly, at one point, the best 200 backstroke de and 400 freestyler in the world, but he never swam those at meets that mattered.

Ledecky is more of a one trick pony (but a really good trick!!). Absolutely dominant at the 800 and 1500, has rarely been beaten at the 4, and in the thick of it at the 200. She’s a good IMer, but really only because of her freestyle.

Both are phenomenal.

---

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Actually, she does (or did, at least, I haven’t watched the latest meets from her).

---

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Agree... they are very different versions of greatness. Phelps is an often recognized greatest, so this was my attempt to explain why I enjoy watching Katie so much more than Michael.

 

got a link?

Not by the numbers,

28 Total & 23 Gold (5 Olympics)

6 Total & 5 Gold (2 Olympics)

22 more to tie (She needs 7.3 per Olympic for 3 Olympics which is an average higer than her total count)

She is a great swimmer (male or female) but she is no Phelps.

She's basically doing a 1-beat kick (check the video at 0:20) to balance her breathing. Her heels rarely break the surface, other than her first kick coming off the wall.

---

ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Link to what? Did you mean to reply to my post?
See my clarification above. I was not arguing that Ledecky is the greatest. I was trying to explain why she is my favorite. That second sentence in context expands to "Way better than Phelps was {to me}.

I absolutely agree that his golds smoke her and he is stands (swims?) alone historically. The fact that he could beat so many other swimmers across all his disciplines is incredible. I like that Ledecky is ludicrously dominant in her smaller set of disciplines and she crushes her competitors in a very unique way.

 
thanks!

doesn't work in canada alas "The uploader has not made this video available in your country."

Here is the thing about the greatness of Phelps. He won a lot of really close races against rivals of equal physical stature, but just by out executing (ex: vs Cavic at Beijing 100 fly). Ledecky never really had the pressure of head to head competition with the heat of someone in the lane beside her, who has a half body length lead off the last wall. I don't think she's ever really mentally challenged in a race with respect to executing like Phelps has had to do so many times and Phelps has done this across disciplines. I have no doubt if Phelps raced the 400, 800 and 1500 free he would be quite dominant, because the energy system for a 400IM and 1500 free (4 min endurance and 14.30 free) are the same minus the last 30 seconds of anaerobic component.

The rest of the race is is aerobic and Phelps is a better sprint freestyler than Sun Yang (to my best knowledge). We don't know how good Phelps' 1500 free would be in competition. I suspect he would beat Sun Yang or it would be a full on sprint in the final 50m. I guess those two guys going head to head in the 200 free would be interesting to see.

Phelps won the 200 fly at Rio against Chad LeClos 1:53.36 t0 1.54.06 and Sun Yang beat LeClos in the 200 free 1:44.65 to 1:45.20. I think it would be a drag race between Phelps and Sun Yang in all the free events from 200m up.

This isn't really fair to Ledecky. In the 200, she's been up against absolute monsters and has pulled out clutch performances. Additionally, in the last world champs, she swam sick and still pulled off a crazy gutsy victory.
They're surely different swimmers, and Phelps's versatility was just astounding. However, the tremendous extent to which Ledecky is better than rivals in key events gives her a claim to best female swimmer ever, but in a different way to Phelps.

Her Olympic life is 5 years (so far) (2 Olympics), that's not a big enough sample size to try to call her the GOAT

Phelps Olympic life was 17 year (5 Olympics) - That's an impressive sample size and justifies GOAT.

It's not consistently up. In fact, it's mostly quite down, and she's looking at the bottom of the pool. She's bobbing to get more power, which is part of her gallop stroke, but it's very different from the traditional waterline at the top of goggles.
Also, for what it's worth, her body position is incredible in the water, which is part of what lets her get away with the bob. It's nothing like the sunken hips and arch of most triathletes.

Just out of curiousity, how far off is Katie Ledecky from Sarah Sjostrom's 100 free and 100 fly world records. Phelp's 100 free time leading the 4x100 in Beijing was 0.69 seconds off the world record (Cielo's 46.91). This from the world 400IM world record holder, not even from a free specialist. Or how far is Ledecky's 200 free from Federica Pellegrini's 200 free world record (I don't know).

Katie and Sun Yang are long distance / mid distance free specialists. I think the right comparison is Katie and Sun Yang. Phelps is in a different league from these two.

Ledecky doesn’t swim fly, and barely does the 100 free. So it’s kind of meaningless to start talking about that.

It isn’t that Phelps is in a different league, in the normal sense. It’s that the nature of their dominance is so different, it’s like asking whether bob beamon was greater than Carl Lewis. They both did things that the other couldn’t replicate.

In the swimming world, if you’re looking for something to compare, which I generally dislike doing, but if you must, the appropriate comparisons with ledecky would be along the lines of Adam Peaty or, turning back the clock, Mary T Meagher. Crazy levels of dominance within a narrow field.

---

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Adam Peaty dominance is unmatched. But nobody really talks about him because he only dominates one event and an event that Americans couldn't care less about.

---

Tiago
---------------------
Sponsors: : Blueseventy :

Phelps wouldn’t have beaten yang or Hackett at 1500 at their peak 1500 fitness

Some get close to him short course I think but he crushes 100 lcm breast. Agreed he is best eg of ledecky type dominance.

Why would the world's best at 4 minutes not have a chanec at being the world's best at 14.5 minutes?

In other sports it always scales, so I can't see how there is some magic in swimming where the 4 min world champion/world record holder can't be the 14.5 minute world record holder, given that the guy also has the technical freestyle ability to also go with 0.7 seconds of the world record over 46/47 seconds at 100m (Phelps Beijing 4x100 start from the blocks vs Cielo)

For physiology reference, see Mo Farah's 400m track running speed, his 1500m time and his 5000m time to see the scaling across distances in this range. Phelps had all the tools in the shed to go head to head with Sun Yang or Hacket. He is an endurance beast and technically also near perfect at free.