Katie Ledecky, you’ve just won two more Gold medals at the Paris 2024 Olympics to bring your career Olympic gold medal haul to nine. What do you want to do next?
Well, one thing she wants to do is inspire more kids to swim. That’s what she said last Wednesday at Ledecky’s ”Conversation With CBS’ Tony Dokoupil” event at 92NY Center in New York City where lots of aspiring young swimmers and their parents were in the audience. Also in the “Swim Like a Girl” chapter at the end of her recently published memoir Just Add Water, she wrote, “All I ever want is to be a good example for young athletes” and about how girls may need to hear motivational messages even more since their lanes to swimming may not be as smooth.
On the surface, getting more kids—especially more girls—to become swimmers may seem like mainly a sports-related goal because swimming is, of course, a sport. However, go deeper into the water and you’ll realize that this is actually a big health-related goal too.
That’s because getting more girls to swim isn’t simply about trying to find the next Ledecky. That’s going to be hard to do since she is quite unique. A post on the MySwimPro website calculated the odds of making the U.S. Olympic swimming team being around one in 15 million. Heck, as a young girl, Ledecky didn’t even think that she would be this Ledecky—meaning the Ledecky that she is now. At the 92NY event, Ledecky told the audience that when she was 15-years-old and was about to participate in her first Olympic Trials in 2012, it didn’t even enter her mind to set making the U.S. Olympic team as a goal until her coach at the time pushed her to do so.
No, she’s kept swimming because she really enjoys swimming itself. Ledecky emphasized, “Enjoy the journey, don’t focus on the end result.” She added, “I can’t pinpoint day made it a goal to win a Gold Medal.”
Ledecky also related the non-Olympian-like beginnings to her swimming career at age six. She talked about how as a young girl a swimming race would consist of her swimming a few meters before grabbing on to the lane marker and surfacing to rest and catch her breath. She would then repeat this cycle until she would eventually make it across the pool. And that’s exactly what the girls “racing” in the lanes next to her would be doing as well.
Now, those competing against her at that young age didn’t end up having the swimming career that Ledecky has had. But there’s a decent chance that those who swam regularly as girls would keep swimming well into adulthood. That would put them in the minority around the world as a 2019 Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll found that only one in three women polled around the world could swim, as described by R.J. Reinhard for Gallup. The number for men was higher (57%) but still way short of 100%.
This number for women was higher in North America specifically with 78% of women saying that they can swim unassisted. That number was still, surprise, surprise, lower than the number for men (89%). Plus, being able to swim is not the same as regularly swimming.
Not being able to swim puts one at greater risk of drowning. And drowning remains the leading cause of death among youth around the world, as I have covered previously. Each year in the he U.S., there has been over 4,500 reported drowning deaths, according to a study published in the Center for Disease Control’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reportorbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Not swimming regularly means missing out on the mental and physical health benefits that swimming can bring. When in the pool, lake or ocean, you kind of have to keep moving your entire body if you don’t want to veer off in the wrong direction or, you know, sink. Swimming, therefore, can work nearly every major muscle group in your body and build your cardiovascular strength while burning lots of calories. And since you can’t just breathe whenever you want to while in the water, swimming can improve your breathing control and lung capacity as well.
At the same time, swimming is not really an impact sport, unless you’ve somehow messed up the lane lines. Since there isn’t even impact with the ground, being in the water can be easier on your joints and any part of your body that may injured and hurting. This means that swimming is something you can do throughout much of your lifetime. Indeed, Ledecky mentioned how she definitely won’t stop swimming once she is done competing.
Then, there are mental and emotional health benefits of swimming. Studies have shown how swimming can improve your sleep, mood and ability to manage your stress. Ledecky spoke of how swimming has helped her focus, set goals such as specific times and achieve them.
Now, not everyone is going to end of having the legendary focus of Ledecky. In the “Technique, Training, Tenacity, Tedium” chapter in her book, she did write “It’s often said that distance swimming requires enduring an excruciating, mind-numbing tedium few other athletes experience.” So, it would be an Olympic-sized expectation to completely replicate what she does. But you can use at least some of techniques that she mentioned at the 92NY event to stay focused such as counting from a number down to zero, thinking about her technique, having a song cycle in her head or thinking friends and family to get through any tough situation whether it’s inside or outside the water. She wrote in the last chapter of her book, aptly named “End,” that “It’s a noteworthy gift of swimming that it demands you stay emotionally engaged in the present.”
So at present what is Ledecky doing? Well she did say that she is taking a break from training until the end of October, early November. Such a rest is kind of reasonable since she did win four medals at Paris and set a new Olympic record in the 1500 meter freestyle.
She has been using this break time to tour and meet different people in different venues like at 92NY. Ledecky did write in the “End” chapter that “For me, swimming has also been a gateway to a higher purpose.” And part of that purpose seems to be inspiring more kids to swim.
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