Katie Ledecky, 15, makes big splash with Olympic gold medal in 800 meters

LONDON — Bethesda’s Katie Ledecky twisted the gold medal hanging around her neck as if it were a strand of hair, massaging the ribbon unconsciously with red-and-blue-painted fingernails. She talked about her victory in the Olympic swimming 800-meter freestyle Friday night as casually as if she were discussing her plans for after school or her score on a history test.

Apparently, only those watching comprehended the magnitude of what Ledecky, 15, had done on the sport’s biggest stage. The rising sophomore at Stone Ridge had not merely won an Olympic gold medal in her first international competition; she broke Janet Evans’s 23-year-old American record with her finish in 8 minutes 14.63 seconds, and just missed the world record of British legend Rebecca Adlington, who was in the race and couldn’t keep up.

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Adlington, who earned the bronze medal in 8:20.32, spoke almost reverently about Ledecky’s effort, throwing out a host of superlatives: “Unbelievable,” she said. “Fantastic . . . absolutely amazing.”

Said USA Swimming National Team Director Frank Busch, shaking his head as he left the Aquatic Center: “It’s one of the biggest shocks I’ve ever seen in the Olympics. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen.”

Spain’s Mireia Belmonte Garcia took second, 4.13 seconds behind Ledecky, who savored the stunner with a mix of smiles and shrugs.

“I knew if I put my mind to it, I could do it,” Ledecky said. “I wasn’t intimidated at all.”

Busch said he watched the race unfold with pure awe. As the crowd filled the building with chants of “Becky! Becky!” for Adlington, the country’s longtime swimming darling, Ledecky took the lead from the beginning and never wavered. She swam under world-record pace until she slipped behind in the final 50 meters, falling just 0.53 of a second short of Adlington’s record from the 2008 Summer Games.

“That’s a young lady that just showed resolve,” Busch said. “[She seemed to be saying] ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, but if somebody is going to go with me, I’m going to make you hurt.’ Nobody could go with her. This is a young lady just determined to win.”

Said Donna de Varona, the 1964 Olympic champion who watched from the stands: “It’s the innocence of youth . . . [and] the ambition of youth.”

The time was more than five seconds faster than Ledecky swam at the U.S. Olympic trials in July and about 20 seconds faster than a year ago.

“I couldn’t have gone any harder,” Adlington said. “I couldn’t have gone any faster.”

Before the race, Michael Phelps, who won the gold medal in the 100 butterfly earlier that night, sought out Ledecky to wish her luck. She recalled her first meeting with Phelps — when she was 6 years old.

She had approached him after a meet at the University of Maryland as he walked to his car, listening to music through headphones. It was a year before he would win six gold medals at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.

She asked him for his autograph. He had no clue who this little girl was, or what she would become. He learned Friday.

“It looked like she went out, had some fun, won a gold medal and just missed a world record,” Phelps said. “That’s a pretty good performance for a 15-year-old.”