Christine Brennan, USA Today:
Katie Ledecky, I will start with her first, Amna.
And I have covered her for a long time. And we remember her as the 15-year-old water bug winning in London, and then the dominant swimmer in Rio just piling up all the gold medals.
And this performance five years later in — here in Tokyo I think is more impressive than any I have seen of hers. And she’s 24 years old now. The competitors are coming on. The young kids are coming on quick. She added the 1, 500, first time the women were doing the 1, 500, the mile. She added that. So that added to her schedule.
And she just plowed through this, two golds, two silvers. I think it was more impressive than what I’d seen from her before, in that, in addition to, of course, winning two golds, handling the silver in the 400 meters, losing to the Australian Ariarne Titmus, with class, grace, dignity, I think Katie Ledecky comes out of these Games as the star so far, and in terms of how she’s handled herself both in the pool and out, just a true role model.
And then Caeleb Dressel, five gold medal. He did exactly what he wanted to do here. The pressure he talked about, so difficult. He wasn’t eating. He wasn’t sleeping. He was shaking. He says he lost 10 pounds, just how difficult it is. And yet he did it, put his name up there with Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps in terms of a man winning three golds at a single Olympic Games.
