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U.S. OLYMPIC SWIM TRIALS

June 27, 2016

Katie Ledecky

Omaha, Nebraska

THE MODERATOR: Katie, congratulations on the win tonight and another spot on the Olympic Team. We have the 200 Free tomorrow morning, so we will get right into questions.

Q. Katie, you swam against my high school team and you killed my junior high team one year. How do you transition from success tonight just getting ready for tomorrow's 200 swim?
KATIE LEDECKY: Um, just focusing on recovery, did a good, long warm-down and got some dinner tonight and a massage. Be ready to go tomorrow. It was pretty hard to sleep, just getting ready for the first event, just having all that excitement there, and I think now I will be able to sleep a little easier.

Q. What kind of yardage will you do tomorrow in warm-up before the 200?
KATIE LEDECKY: I will just do my normal warm-up. I usually do about a 2,000 warm-up before a race, plus pace.

Q. How much pace?
KATIE LEDECKY: Just a couple 50s.

Q. With your coach after the race, what do you talk about with your coach about the race? The analysis of the race?
KATIE LEDECKY: I haven't watched the video yet. I don't know if I will leading into the other races. Maybe after this meet I'll look at it, but right now I just have to move on and focus on the next event.

Q. Katie, obviously you don't get to see the video board with the times like we do, but is there a point in the race where it's not necessarily an ah-oh, but you know that you have maybe gone out as to fast and now you've got to kick it home? Is there a moment where that thought kicks in?
KATIE LEDECKY: Um, no. I mean, I could tell I was tightening up just a little bit, but just knowing that I had to get my hand to the wall pushed me through that and didn't really focus on how I was feeling. I just wanted to try to maintain my same stroke, my same rhythm and get my hand to the wall.

Q. Katie, I know it's hard to hear when you're swimming, but when there's 14,000 people making that much noise, were you aware of where things were going?
KATIE LEDECKY: Oh, yeah, I heard the crowd tonight, and I could hear the announcer, even, saying something so I knew I was probably having a good swim, and it's always fun when the crowd gets into it and gets off their feet, and with that many fans, that many young swimmers in the stands you want to put up a good swim, put on a show, and I think Leah and I did a good job of that tonight.

Q. Coach Bruce talked about one of your strengths as how you enjoy the process. Can you talk a little bit about what your expectations and plans are going into your second Olympic Games and what your goals are as a swimmer, like ultimate goal as well as your dream for your life?
KATIE LEDECKY: Yeah, I do really enjoy the process, and I think Bruce and I have set some good goals along the way, and we've been working toward those. That's what's made it fun every day in practice, and just seeing that improvement in workouts and having it translate into meets, so I'm very happy with my swim tonight.

And going into my second Olympics, I couldn't be happier to have qualified tonight, and I have the rest of the week ahead of me with a lot of big swims, and I know I need to be fast the rest of the week, so I'm excited to be heading to Rio, and hopefully I can tack on a few more events, and it should be a great time.

Q. Katie, the swimmers who came in here yesterday after making the Olympic Team all expressed huge relief and just getting on the team and how they feel like Rio they will be able to swim much more relaxed races. Do you feel the same and how does that give you -- how does that make you feel about the 400 in Rio?
KATIE LEDECKY: For sure I think this is the most stressful meet out there, and it's -- that's why we swim so well at the Olympics, because we're put in this situation here in Omaha, and it feels easy once we get to the Olympics. It's all about just racing and seeing if we can improve off of this, and after this week we'll get back to training and we will have our training camp, so I'm excited to get to train with Leah and I know we will push each other to continue to improve and put up some good swims in Rio.

Q. Katie, is it kinda weird to swim the third-fastest 400 in history and yet have people picking apart your performance to some degree, asking if you went out too fast? Is this a testament to the standard you set, I guess?
KATIE LEDECKY: I guess so. It's all fun. I'm very happy with that time. I haven't been 3:58 since 2014, and I'm happy with how I swam it. I know there are some improvements we can make off of it, and we won't really dwell on those right now. We will focus on those after this week, but I'm really excited for the rest of the week now that I have my first swim under the belt, and I have that ticket punched to Rio.

Q. What were you thinking -- could you see Leah Smith during that race? Could you tell what she was doing and how excited were you when she touched the wall and you have someone in that territory, another potential US medalist in that event?
KATIE LEDECKY: Yeah, I could see her right there. I could see her hands, and she was right there with me the whole time, and I had no idea how fast we were going. I figured just based on how far ahead I was, I knew even if she went the time she went this morning that my time still would have been, you know, 4:00 or 4:01, but then to touch the wall and see that I went 58 and she went 4:00, that's amazing, and I think that sets us both up really well for Rio, and she is three seconds ahead of everybody else in the world right now, and I know we're only going to get better from here.

Q. I would like to know what you find appealing about the daily grind and what a bad day feels like for you and how you deal with it.
KATIE LEDECKY: It's a grind, but it's something I have a lot of fun with, and I have a great coach in Bruce and some really great teammates, and we have a lot of fun every day. It's fun to just race in practice and see how far I can push myself and -- I mean, we push it to the limit in practice so that we can get in those situations in races and really take it as far as I can.

I just try to be consistent in practice and, yeah, I do have a bad day every once in a while, but I've kind of accepted that those happen, and I just come back the next day and try to make it better.

Q. We ask you about your goals a lot and you keep them to yourself, but you obviously accomplished one tonight in making the Olympic Team. As far as your goals in this event, is it times? Is it placements? Is it certain meets that you want to do well at? Can you give us anything as far as what you are looking at broadly?
KATIE LEDECKY: It's kind of a combination of things but it's mainly a time, and the time kind of would hopefully mean the place. I guess that's the best way too put it. I certainly have goals beyond this week. I certainly have goals better than what I did tonight, and hopefully the rest of the week goes well, and we can set it up so that I can really hit those goals and have some fun in Rio.

Q. Katie, when you think that four years ago in this event you missed making the Olympic Team by less than a second, what goes through your mind?
KATIE LEDECKY: I remembered that today, and I don't know why I was thinking about that or why -- but I mean, I think it just shows how far I've come and how much experience I've gained and how much faster I've gotten, really, and I think just -- again, to compliment Leah's swim, to go 4:00, that was faster than the winning time I think four years ago, and it was just an amazing field, an amazing race, and it's just cool to look back and see how far we've all come in four years.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Katie. Congratulations.

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