Katie Ledecky makes swimming history with major world championship wins

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Katie Ledecky is already considered the greatest swimmer of this decade.

  This weekend, she made her claim for the greatest of all time, notching two new records of the 2023 world championships. In Japan, Ledecky surpassed Michael Phelps for the most individual titles in swimming history with 16. She also became the first swimmer ever to win six world titles at the same event.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Christine Brenan is a sports columnist for USA Today. She's covered Ledecky for years. She joins us now.

  Christine, always good to see you.

  In your USA Today piece, you wrote: "Even by her own ridiculously high standards, Ledecky outdid herself."

  How did she do that?

• Christine Brenan, USA Today:

  Absolutely, Amna.

  Well, first of all, you just heard one of the wonderful things about Katie Ledecky as a role model and American hero, and that is, she — I think she's the most self-effacing superstar in American sports and maybe even worldwide, deflecting, saying she didn't even really — wasn't even aware that she was about to break this record.

  But Katie Ledecky, Amna, is getting faster as she's getting older. She's 26. She will be 27 next year for the Paris Olympics. And she is swimming faster now than she did two years ago at the Tokyo Olympics. And she's really coming closer to the times that she swam in 2016 at the Rio Olympics, when she was the breakout star there.

  And so, now, I'm sure many people hear that and say, well, swimming, you remember the East Germans. You — of course, the issues of doping in the sport. Katie is a stickler. She absolutely believes in clean sport and asks to be drug-tested. And one of my favorite anecdotes about Katie on is that she literally will text the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency or go on the app if she's going to the grocery store on the off chance that, during that 15 minutes, a tester might come for a random knock-on-the-door drug test.

  That is how serious Katie is about clean sport and about proving that she is doing this the right way.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Christine, you mentioned she's getting faster. You noted in your piece some of those times. In the 800 meters, she shaved at least four seconds off her time from two years ago. In the 1,500, she shaved her 10 seconds off her time.

  How is she doing that? What she doing differently?

• Christine Brenan:

  The big change is that she has moved from her training base when she went to Stanford and got her degree there. She's moved to the University of Florida, and she is training with men.

  She has gone to the stable of male distance swimming in the United States. The best distance swimmers in the country, the men, are at the University of Florida training for an Olympic gold medalist, now coach Anthony Nesty.

  And so Katie is competing against the boys. She's — every day, she's going up against those men, and she is testing herself in a way that really I have never heard of a top female swimmer at this stage of her career has. She's doing it. And she is seeing the results.

• Amna Nawaz:

  I don't know if you can answer this briefly, but what do you think about this debate about the greatest of all time? Is she the GOAT?

• Christine Brenan:

  Certainly, Michael Phelps is right up there, and his Olympic marks are probably not going to be matched.

  But Katie, in terms of world championships, and in terms of longevity — and we have seen swimmers at shorter distances, Amna, go into their 30s. But for a woman now 26, to be 27 next year at the Olympics to be dominating at the — at the longer distances, the longest distances, 800 meters, 1,500 meters, that's extraordinary.

  And so I put her right up there.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So I got to ask you, before we let you go, Christina about the U.S. women's national soccer team. They're vying for another World Cup title right now in Australia and New Zealand.

  The next game is either late tonight or early tomorrow, depending on how you look at time and your sleeping patterns, is 3:00 a.m. Eastern. They take on Portugal. What is at stake for this team?

• Christine Brenan:

  Everything. The U.S. team has never, ever gotten knocked out in the group stage. And this is what that is, is the final of the group stage games.

  The U.S. team has won four of the eight World Cups. They are the most dominant. They're the Johnny Appleseeds sowing the seeds for the sport and fighting for equal pay. Everyone looks up to the U.S. team. So they have got to play better than they played in the first two matches. I think they will. Portugal's ranked 21st in the world. The U.S. is ranked first in the world.

  But the pressure is on the United States. If they were to be defeated, if they bow out, my goodness, it would be a huge story and such a disappointment, especially as people think they're going to go all the way or at least be competing to get to, say, the semifinals.

  They have never, ever not gotten to the semifinals. They have never even finished fourth in a World Cup. So that's the pressure that this younger team, with 14 new faces out of 23 players, that's the pressure that they're facing in a few hours. I think they will rise to the challenge, Amna.

  But it's going to be very interesting to see if they can pull it off, because Portugal's played well, and the U.S. so far really hasn't found its footing. And I think we will see if they can do that this time.

• Amna Nawaz:

  They have got millions cheering for them while they do.

  Christine Brenan, sports columnist for USA Today, always good to see you. Thank you.

• Christine Brenan:

  You too. Thank you.