Katie Ledecky Discusses Receiving Presidential Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden: ‘I Was Speechless’

Everyone scanning the record of Friday’s Presidential Medal of Flexibility recipients would come across the common parade of senior federal government officers: 76-12 months-previous previous Vice President Al Gore, 80-year-aged former Secretary of Point out John Kerry, and 84-yr-old previous Speaker of the Property Nancy Pelosi, to identify just a several.

And then there was swimmer Katie Ledecky, 27, who the nation “watches … in awe” as a White House release phrased it.

“It was fairly surreal,” Ledecky advised Athletics Illustrated of the honor bestowed upon her Friday by President Joe Biden. “Just listening to all the accomplishments and all the effect that all of these persons have produced on our region was very inspiring. I believe getting young however, it does inspire me to carry on to work actually tricky, both of those in the pool and out.”

Ledecky is considered to be the initially swimmer ever to receive the honor. A consensus preference on any checklist of the finest American Olympians, the Bethesda, Md., native has won seven Olympic gold medals and a few silvers across her decorated vocation. A lot of of her best races have been comically lopsided, and she has long- and short-training course earth documents in the 800- and 1500-meter freestyles to her identify.

The 21-time environment champion introduced her mother and father, brother, uncle, former coach, two relatives mates and the head of her significant school to obtain her medal—which she reported rendered her “speechless.”

“I hardly ever would’ve imagined I would receive this recognition,” Ledecky reported. “It was a thrill to be capable to be here. Just a really incredible working day assembly some amazing folks.”

Over a decade just after bursting onto the scene as a 15-yr-aged at the London Olympics in 2012, Ledecky has steadily embraced an ambassadorial position in the swimming earth. She has a memoir out in June, and seems most likely to determine between the seasoned veterans on the American swimming workforce in Paris this summertime.

If a 4-medal haul at very last year’s globe championships in Fukuoka is any sign, nevertheless, she continues to be firmly at the top rated of her activity in a activity with famously cruel patterns of getting older. Beyond Paris, she’s instructed different shops she’s eyeing the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles as well.

“I want to depict our workforce well in the pool and also help the more youthful swimmers coming up on these teams, make confident that they are feeling snug and self-confident. I’m seriously energized for this summer months,” Ledecky explained. “(I am) continuing to put in the operate. I bought my swim in this morning.”

Ledecky’s fourth Olympics will come amid a watershed calendar year for women’s sports. Women’s college basketball, qualified soccer and experienced hockey have all strike cultural milestones over the very last calendar year.

That’s a testomony to the power of the athletes in those people sporting activities, in accordance to Ledecky—and American Olympians have a possibility to have that torch in Paris.

“It can be our duty to be great ambassadors for our region when we go compete—to demonstrate good sportsmanship, to contend with fantastic respect for our opponents and to be leaders in our communities and in our place,” Ledecky stated. “We know younger young children appear up to us and we have to be fantastic purpose versions for the reason that we want the future technology to do terrific factors, irrespective of whether that is in athletics or in federal government or in new music or in the arts.”

In Fukuoka, Ledecky broke icon and fellow Maryland indigenous Michael Phelps’s record for individual world titles. But since she lags driving him in a crucial statistic, she has no designs to rub in the truth she gained presidential decoration 1st to Phelps.

“He nevertheless has way much more (Olympic) medals than I do,” Ledecky reported.