.webp)
Sarah Sjöström pulled off her goggles, took a quick glance up at the scoreboard and released every emotion. She pounded the water in triumph, sat up on the lane line and raised her chin and arms high.
The vaunted Swedish sprint swimmer hopped out of the pool, waved, then covered her face, overcome that she had won the 100-meter freestyle Wednesday night.
Sjöström began her decorated Olympic career at age 15 in Beijing, and now she’s an Olympic champion again at 30 in Paris.
Pretty impressive for someone who didn’t even want to swim the 100, an event in which she has held the world record since 2017.
“This is unbelievable. I didn’t think I would swim the 100 free, honestly,” Sjöström said. “After the freestyle relay the first day I told my coach straightaway, I was like, ‘No, I don’t think 100 free’s for me, I want to do the 50, I want to rest until the 50.’ And he was like, ‘No way, you need to go out there and see what you can do no matter the outcome.’”
It’s her second career gold medal in her fifth Olympics.
Sjöström touched the wall in 52.16 seconds, edging American silver medalist Torri Huske, who finished at 52.29, while Siobhan Bernadette Haughey of Hong Kong took bronze in 52.33.
“I think my reaction said everything,” Sjöström said. “I didn’t really know where I was exactly when I finished. It took a while, it took a few seconds before I saw that I won. I just felt like I had a really good race and I was so in my zone, 100% focused on all the details that I’ve been working with.”
Her coaches talked her into giving the 100 free a try at the start of the swimming competition last weekend.
Did she argue?
“Yeah, of course I did,” she said, grinning.
Sjöström had figured she would focus on the 50 free in Paris. Of course, she’s thrilled to have changed her mind — or had it changed for her.
She trailed at the halfway point.
“I didn’t know exactly what I could do and I definitely didn’t know what everyone else could do,” she said. “I’m super proud of myself that I tried this.”
A five-time Olympian who owns three current world records — the 50 butterfly and 100 and 50 frees — she was the 100 fly champion in Rio de Janeiro eight years ago.
“I have seven silver medals at the world champs and the bronze medal at the Olympics 2016,” Sjöström said. “So that says a lot. I have no more words.”
Taking her victory lap around La Defense Arena, Sjöström at one point lifted the Swedish flag into the air and she repeatedly stopped for selfies with fans.
And now she will have a few days to rest and refocus on her 50 free, which happens Sunday in the final day of swimming at these Games.
It’s the race she knows best, her comfort zone.
“That’s always been my challenge when it comes to the 100 free, because I really need to focus on the breathing pattern,” Sjöström said. “When I do the 50 free there is no problem, so I just put my head down and I spin my arm and I swim fast.”
American swimmer Katie Ledecky has done it again, winning her 8th career gold medal Wednesday at the Paris Summer Olympics.
Ledecky, age 27, finished the women’s 1,500 meter freestyle final more than ten seconds ahead of the silver medal finisher.
"I'm happy with the time, happy with how it felt," Ledecky said after the race. "The happiness and the joy, it just comes out."
Ledecky also set a new Olympic record of 15:30.02. The 1,500 meter race is a grueling endurance event and Ledecky swam like a sprinter.
In front of a packed, roaring crowd at La Defense arena, she broke away early from the other swimmers, and gradually widened her lead. Stroke after stroke. Length after length. No one could catch her. Not even close.
"Doubts enter your mind, you just kind of stay positive through it all," Ledecky said of her preparation for this race. "I finally put together a swim I felt I was capable of."
Anastasiia Kirpichnikova of France won silver while Isabel Gose of Germany took bronze.
After receiving her gold medal, Ledecky grinned and waved at the crowd before hugging her coaches and teammates.
Ledecky has now won gold medals in four different Olympic games (the first female swimmer to do that) and hasn’t lost this race in 14 years. Incredibly, she now owns the 20 fastest times in history of the 1,500.
Speaking before her swim, Ledecky said she’s learned to love the intense, non-stop training regimen that’s allowed her to compete at this elite level for so long.
Ryan Murphy, an American Olympic gold medalist in the backstroke, was asked ahead of Wednesday's race about Ledecky's importance to U.S. swimming.
"She's constantly pushing the envelope on how she can improve and it's incredible for our sport," Murphy said.
"She's one of the best of all time. We're really lucky to have her on our team as both an athlete and a leader."
Another American, 21-year-old Torri Huske, a new star in these Olympics, also had a strong night.
After winning her first gold medal a few days ago, Huske raced to a silver medal in the women's 100 meter freestyle final.
"It feels amazing," Huske said Wednesday. "I've had so many people help me along the way. My teammates push me every single day in practice."
Turns out, those comparisons to Michael Phelps weren’t farfetched at all when it comes to Léon Marchand.
They certainly weren’t a burden for the 22-year-old Frenchman.
Marchand completed one of the most audacious doubles in swimming history Wednesday night, winning the 200-meter butterfly and the 200 breaststroke about two hours apart in front of a home crowd cheering his every stroke.
Two grueling races. Two very different strokes. Two Olympic records. Two gold medals.
Take that, Phelps, who did several doubles of his own while claiming a record eight golds at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
“I’m a really shy person,” Marchand said. “I was kind of the center of attention during those two races. I was trying to get the energy from the whole crowd. They’re amazing to me, pushing me in every final.”
Thrilling the French fans and claiming the spotlight even on a night when Katie Ledecky romped to another gold medal, Marchand notched his second and third victories at La Defense Arena and stamped himself — with the Olympics not even a week old — as one of the faces of the Games.
He led all the way, touching in 2 minutes, 5.85 seconds as more than 15,000 fans — many of them holding up cardboard cutouts of his smiling face — nearly blew the roof off La Defense Arena.
“Léon! Léon! Léon!” they screamed, a chant that was sure to carry on through the night in Paris.
Marchand gets thing rolling
Trailing most of the way in the 200 fly, Marchand surged past the Hungarian Milák on the final lap to finish with an Olympic record of 1:51.71, touching first by just by four-hundredths of a second.
Marchand’s final lap was nearly 0.66 faster than anyone else in the field — and 1.26 clear of Milák.