The most decorated female Olympic swimmer in history discussed competing at an elite level and her new memoir at Lisner Auditorium Tuesday.
Katie Ledecky, a four-time Olympian and nine-time gold medalist, spoke about her swimming career and memoir “Just Add Water: My Swimming Life,” which was published in June. The event was hosted by GW and the Politics and Prose Bookstore and was moderated by MSNBC host and former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
University President Ellen Granberg introduced the event and said GW’s yearslong partnership with Politics and Prose has made for events with people like Hillary Clinton and Rachel Maddow.
“For years, GW’s location in the heart of the nation’s capital, our leadership in fields like health, public policy, law and international affairs and our unique partnership with Politics and Prose have created a series of remarkable, only-at-GW events,” Granberg said.
Granberg said Ledecky’s achievements have inspired people across the country.
“This evening, we are honored to host another fantastic speaker whose achievements and life story continue to inspire so many young athletes across the country and of course here at GW,” Granberg said.
Psaki opened the event by praising Ledecky’s book.
“I read this book. It is so good,” Psaki said. “And not just because if you’re a swimming nerd, which a lot of people in here, I’m sure, are, but because it is so humanizing about who you are and what drives you and who’s important to you in your life, that’s why I loved it.”
Ledecky said her swimming career, which most recently brought her to the 2024 Paris Olympics, began when she was on a youth summer swim team in Montgomery County, Maryland. She recounted eating chocolate ice cream before morning practices and listening to hours of Bruce Springsteen with her father while driving to swim meets as a kid.
She said her one of her first swim coaches she had as a kid was in Paris this summer during the Olympics.
“Actually one of my first summer league swim coaches was in Paris, which was really special,” Ledecky said. “I have such great memories of being on the team with some of my best friends to this day and learning the strokes, learning how to breathe and the freestyle.”
Ledecky, who holds 14 Olympic medals and 21 world championship titles, is the most decorated female swimmer in history. She made her Olympic debut in 2012 at age 15 and later attended Stanford University, where she won eight NCAA titles.
Ledecky said her coaches over the years helped her set goals that ultimately landed her a spot at the 2012 Olympic trials and at every summer Olympics since. She said Coach Yuri Suguiyama at Nation’s Capital Swim Club in D.C. encouraged her to set her goal on making the Olympic team.
“I’ve had so many great coaches over the years, and the reason I wrote about each of them in the book is because I think it is a little unique that I’ve had four different coaches over the past four Olympic cycles,” Ledecky said. “I think it’s great that I’ve had these different relationships with these different coaches, and I have gained something different from each of them.”
Ledecky said she always loved going to practice but found her infatuation for training during the four years between the 2012 London Olympics and 2016 Rio Olympics, where she saw continuous improvement in her racing and continued to set goals to work toward.
“I really loved seeing the improvement every day and the improvement every week, every month, every year, just always setting my sights higher in training,” Ledecky said.
Ledecky said her training was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced her to alter how she prepared for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which had been postponed for a year. She said her coach at Stanford contacted a family who offered their two lane, 25-yard backyard pool, which she said is half the size of a typical Olympic swimming pool, for her and a teammate to practice in daily.
“We thought it was maybe going to be a three-day thing. It turned into three weeks, and then it turned into three months, where every day I swam in this backyard pool with one of my teammates,” Ledecky said.
Ledecky said winning a gold medal “doesn’t get old” and that it “feels like the first time” when she touches the wall of the Olympic pool. She said she tries to mentor other young athletes on the U.S. Olympic team because she remembers what it was like when she first competed in London, and she reminds them that they’ve earned their spot due to the hard work they put in.
“They put in all the hard work to get there. I certainly had such great teammates to look up to when I was that 15 year old, and I want to be able to give that back to the younger swimmers coming up in the sport,” Ledecky said.
Ledecky said she is inspired by her grandparents’ toughness, each of whom she dedicated a chapter to in her memoir. She said she thought about her grandparents before competing in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to give her strength before her toughest races.
“I just all of a sudden started thinking about my grandparents, and especially my two grandmothers that I knew were watching back at home in the U.S., and I decided to just repeat their names over and over in my head during the race,” Ledecky said. “I think that filled me with so much love and reminded me of how tough they are and that I have some of their toughness.”
