Speaking of Olympic champions, we have heard the story of Quanhong Zen taking gold medals to raise medical expenses for his mother, seen Chen Lijun's determination to win the Olympic gold medal for many years in the face of injuries in order to improve his family, and athletes competing for gold and silver in order to defend the honor of the motherland and complete the tasks entrusted by the motherland, and the family burden or the collective sense of honor gives them a huge driving force.
But have you ever heard of an Olympic champion who is a rich second generation? Almost nothing. At best, it's a middle class.
Even if wang jiaer is a small rich second generation, playing sports is also because his father himself is the coach of the Hong Kong fencing team, and Wang Jiaer did not win the Olympic championship, and gave up in his 10s and entered the entertainment circle.
There are many entertainment circles in which the rich second generation enters the gold fight with ease, and there are not many sports that are thankless and prone to injury. Not to mention an Olympic gold medal. Even if you participate in the Olympic Games, it is enough to play with one piece, and you can get 7 Olympic gold medals.
Not only that, but he also broke the world record 14 times and is the holder of three current world records. What is the existence of yyds?
What is this inspirational story? It's a fantasy. The first time Xi Xi heard about it, he also felt that it was too unthinkable and worth studying carefully. However, just this time in the Tokyo Olympics, she won 2 gold and 2 silver.
There is really no wonder in the world, there really is such a god-level figure. She is known as the next Phelps, the leader of the U.S. swimming team who has surpassed Phelps in actual achievements - Katie Ledecky, the current world record holder in the women's 400m, 800m and 1500m individual freestyle events. Although she has not been counted, she must be one of the richest in the family of Olympic champions.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="19" >1 born into a perfect family</h1>
Born into a perfect family, Ledecky was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in nearby Maryland. Her father, David, graduated from Harvard In 1982 with a B.A. and Yale in 1986 as a lawyer, her uncle Jon, who also graduated from Harvard, was one of the main bosses of the NHL's New York Islanders; and her brother Michael also graduated from Harvard.
Ledecky and her Harvard brother Source: Baidu Encyclopedia
If you think about it, what kind of rich people have to be able to afford an NHL (Hockey National League) team in the United States. It is equivalent to buying a football team in China' A-League, and there is no doubt that the rich are rich.
The NHL New York Islanders were worth about $520 million. The uncle is worth $340 million.
And Ledecky's father, although there are not too many details, is now working as an outside consultant at the world's highest-paid law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP, aged around 60, should be in semi-retirement, considering that many years in the capital Washington, D.C. as a lawyer, and Harvard, Yale graduates, brothers also have a football team, whether it is in the government lobby, or to provide agency services for the football team, that is not an ordinary lawyer, but the ceiling income of the legal profession.
Coupled with the training of a son to Harvard, a daughter to Stanford or the Olympic champion, Stanford even if it is a sports student, GPA results must be 3.7 to enter, and Ledecky in recent years rejected the annual commercial sponsorship of 5 million US dollars, since 2015 0 salary 0 sponsorship training, there is no shortage of money in the rich second generation.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="185" > 2 talents are very mediocre and not swimming geniuses</h1>
Ledecky's mother was a new Mexico University swimming team, and perhaps, you would say, Ledecky must have been a genius like Phelps, born to swim.
The amazing thing is that it's not at all. The coach has measured all the indicators, and Ledecki is very, very mediocre and ordinary in all indicators, including height, arm span, leg length, foot size, even endurance, speed, bouncing power, etc., and none of them shows that she has any swimming talent or advantage.
Ledecky's coach Bruce Gemmel is from the Washington, D.C. Swim Club. When he started taking Ledecky in 2012, Ledecky couldn't even do 3 push-ups, couldn't run a mile in 9 minutes, and did poorly in land conditioning training twice a week. Ledecky was 1.82 meters tall at the time, do you think there is an advantage in height? But the reality is...
"Does she have a height advantage? If you've looked closely at the international podium, Ledecky is usually the shortest one," Gemmer said, "and she doesn't have a long torso and short legs like Michael Phelps." Her palms are small, and her feet are ordinary people. At the Olympic Training Center, we did a test of the athletes' health, including how they moved, how they jumped, etc. I was holding the 60-page report and I saw the second sentence that said, 'The results show, very, very ordinary.' ”
Hooking up with swimming didn't even start out smoothly. In the summer of her 6th year, Ledecky began learning to swim at the Palisades Swimming and Tennis Club in Maryland, simply because she wanted to be with her brother, and she had to do whatever she wanted. But her grades were average, and she had to stop and rest on the split track after swimming for a while. In fact, throughout the summer, Ledecky's only goal was to swim to the end of the 25-meter pool in one go. However, before the last Group B test in the summer, she finally reached the end point of Spring Valley Pediatric Hospital. She suffered from swimming otitis.
Ledecky swims with her brother Source: Baidu Encyclopedia
When encountering such painful memories, most people have little good feelings about swimming, and even have shadows. However, Ledecky did not resist swimming at all.
But in the beginning, Katie did not swim as firmly as Phelps, and there were only three things: "sleeping, eating, and swimming". She enjoys playing basketball and playing football, studied Irish dance for two years, and played the piano well. At the age of 15, Ledecky's piano level was even praised as a level that could be developed as a pianist, and she won the gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle at the London Olympics that year.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="186" >3 won the Olympic gold medal before swimming firmly</h1>
Unlike many Olympic gold medalists who have been practicing day after day since the age of 4 or 5, they have set the goal of winning the Olympic gold medal, and have been practicing hard for decades, just for a goal, Ledecky can almost be said to be because she won the Olympic gold medal, this little girl who could have become a pianist decided to give up playing the piano and all other activities to focus on swimming.
And, as mentioned earlier, unlike many sports schools that select seedlings, look at many indicators, innate conditions, Ledecky's innate indicators are mediocre, and there is no indication that she has any innate advantage to win the Olympic championship, let alone break the world record.
However, it is such a mediocre ordinary person, she has achieved a record that is difficult to match by any swimming genius, comparable to the flying fish Phelps, and now, she is already a leader in the American swimming world and even the world swimming world.
Ledecky took a photo with her idol Phelps when she was a child, and now she can compete with idols Source: Baidu Encyclopedia
Take a look at her glorious history:
The 2013 World Champions Cup broke the world record of 1500 m (15:36.53) and the 800 m (8:13.86), which had been held for five years.
At the 2014 Woodlands Swim Team Senior Invitational, he broke his own world records in the 1500m and 800m in the individual freestyle, with a time of 15:34.23 and 8:11.00 respectively.
In the 2014 US National Championships, Katie set her third world record, breaking the world record set by Federica Pellegrini in 2009 with a time of 3:58.86 in the women's 400m freestyle event. So far, Katie has equaled Janet Evans' record with a world record title in the 400, 800 and 1500 meters at the same time.
In the 2014 Pan Pacific Swimming Champions Cup, Katie won five titles in the 200, 400, 800, 1500 and 4×200 meters and broke her world records again in the 400 and 1500 meters, with a time of 3:58.37 and 15:28.36 respectively.
At the 2015 Kazan World Swimming Championships, Katie won the gold medal in the 400m individual freestyle event, and broke the world record set by herself in the preliminary and final stages of the 1500m individual freestyle, with the results of 15:27.71 and 15:25.48 respectively. In the next two days, he won two gold medals in the 200-meter self-× 400-meter relay respectively.
That race was the only classic in the history of world swimming. She returned to the 200m freestyle semifinals 29 minutes after breaking the 1500m freestyle world record. No one in the history of the swimming world has been as "dead" as she is — Missy Franklin at the 2012 London Olympics, and Phelps at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
It felt terrible to die, and Ledecky had sore arms and trembling legs. After 10 strokes, she felt her arms stiff as "jelly", and after 100 meters she fell to seventh: "despair that has never been". When she was sixth at 150 meters, Ledecky told herself, "Katie, don't mess it up... Don't mess it up... Don't mess it up..." In the last 50 meters, Ledecky's rhythm began to mess up, and she instinctively killed like a beginner swimmer: "I can only hit the water continuously, arms and legs as fast as possible," Ledecky said.
But as a result, she not only reached the final, but then, later, also took the 200 meters to herself.
This can no longer be described by any words such as "admiration, worship", which is simply extraordinary people can do, yyds ah~ ah~
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, the women's 400m freestyle gold medal broke her own world record with 3 minutes 56.46 seconds, the gold medal in the women's 200m freestyle, the defending women's 4* 200m freestyle relay, and then won the women's 800m freestyle gold medal with a world record of 8:04.79.
At the 2017 World Swimming Championships in Budapest, Katie won the 1500m freestyle, 19 seconds ahead of second place. In the 400m freestyle, he won three consecutive championships in 3:58.34, breaking the club record. In the women's 800m freestyle final, she also won the world championships three times in a row.
At the 2018 TYR Pro Swimming Series in Indianapolis, USA, she once again broke her own world record in the women's 1500m freestyle with a time of 15:20.48. It's a 5-second improvement from the record of 15 minutes 25.48 seconds set at the 2015 World Swimming Championships in Kazan. Her new world record was placed in the same men's competition, four seconds ahead of third place.
She broke the world record a total of 14 times, raising the world record by 2 seconds in the 400 meters, 9 seconds in the 800 meters, and 16 seconds in the 1500 meters!
Moreover, she is more divine that the average swimmer, who is good at short distances, is not good at long distances, and vice versa. Ledecky is obviously good at long distances, but she is not weak at all, and the 200m freestyle is the Rio Olympic gold medal, the 5th in this Tokyo Olympics.
This time, china won gold and broke the world record in the women's 4X200m freestyle relay, I believe that everyone deeply remembers the last baton of the American team of Ledecky, from the bats far behind Australia and china, there is a gap of 1.94 seconds with the Chinese team, to surpass Australia by oneself, snatching a silver medal from Australia's hands, and also breaking the world record. If the distance is a little longer, China's gold medal will probably be snatched away by her, and finally only 0.4 seconds behind the Chinese team, that is to say, she is a full 1.5 seconds faster than Li Bingjie, and that time, almost all the members of the Chinese team have improved by 1-2 seconds from their best time and 5.93 seconds by the overall best time, Ledecky is still so much faster than them, she was close to her best time of 200 meters.
The momentum that she brought with her when she went into the water, "it's so much behind, it doesn't matter, my sister must chase it back" can only be described in four words:
Animals are fierce.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="187" >4 Amazingly frightening internal drive</h1>
Coming from a perfect family, without any financial pressure, catholic, the coach said he hadn't found any dark side, was very sunny, had a sweet smile, pursued grades but wasn't blind, and despised any idea of using drugs to tarnish his grades.
Xi Xi began to think that her internal drive might come from competition. Xi Xi has also seen a type of person, usually no desire and no demand, like to grow vegetables and raise flowers and read books, quiet to death, no pursuit of materials, more pursuit of the spiritual world. However, once there is a competition, any competition of games, activities, performance, etc., it will come to power, like a change of person, must put the opponent "down" until the end, the internal driving force comes from "competition", like competition, like to win the feeling, whether it is winning prizes, rankings, or money, not important, there is a very big attraction, is like competition, pk, battle, as soon as you hear it is excited.
However, later on, Ledecky, it is not. Because she is already the absolute king in the 800 meters and 1500 meters, much faster than the second place, 19 seconds, 16 seconds faster than the original world record, there is no opponent at all, her opponent is only herself.
Jin Yong martial arts have a lonely and defeated, there is no opponent in the world, what a boring thing! The opponent itself is also one of the sources of internal driving force, even the opponent is gone, even the lonely defeat has no driving force, and it has returned to the hidden mountains and forests.
After Ledecky touched the wall, there was no one within 25 meters, and he was alone and defeated
At a World Championship, she was 19 seconds faster than the second place, and when the swim was over, there were people who were nearly 100 meters slower than her, so that she soaked in the pool for a full 97 seconds, waiting for all the athletes to touch the wall before going ashore.
The World Championship Quarterfinals are more than 100 meters behind her and are still swimming in the final round
Why is it so driven to surpass yourself and break world records again and again?
Russian pole vault queen Isinbayeva broke the world record 28 times, but she is for the bonus, breaking the record 1 centimeter each time, so that she can break a few more times and get more bonuses. And pole vaulting, the pole is there, there is a goal, know where your ability is.
Ledecky broke the record not for money, she refused the annual sponsorship of $5 million, since 2015 began to pay 0 salary 0 sponsorship, but can still keep training at 4 o'clock every day, when the game, she can not swim while watching the timer, just a little faster than the world record, bringing a sense of accomplishment.
Swimming is the same as athletics, training is actually very boring, and the results are difficult to improve, belongs to the "double the work" and "stunned" projects, unlike table tennis, badminton, training or you come and go, with some skills, randomness, feedback, but also increase the fun of sports. Swimming, athletics belong to a whistle, just stunned to swim ah, run, there is no feedback in the middle, the results come out, to review the process of where to do well, where to do not do well, and then to correct, improve is difficult, you even if you increase 0. a few seconds, may have to day after day, year after year, repeated, boring training for a long time, very boring project.
China has also had many swimming geniuses and famous players, such as Ye Shiwen, who was the women's 200-meter medley and 400-meter medley champion of the 2012 London Olympic Games and also broke the world record, Sun Yang, who won gold in the Olympic Games twice, and Fu Yuanhui, etc., however, they appeared at the peak, swimming with age, weight growth, it is difficult to maintain, this Olympic Games has no figure of them. The Chinese swimming team is certainly not as talented and competitive as the American swimming team. And Ledecky, who is the same age as Ye Shiwen and Fu Yuanhui, has traveled from the 15-year-old who won the gold medal at the London Olympics in 2012 to the current 24 years old, dominating for nearly 10 years and breaking the world record he holds 11 times.
Ledecky has participated in 3 Olympic Games, but he has also released "harsh words", the next Paris will definitely go, and I hope to participate in 2028.
Having won so many Olympic gold medals, countless world championships, and the record has been broken 14 times, why do you have such a strong motivation to participate in the 2 Olympic Games? Is it really confusing for the second monk?
At present, her internal driving force can really only be explained by "surpassing herself and loving swimming", and this spirit of longing to transcend can support her to go through one Olympic Games after another, has participated in 3 Olympic Games, and wants to participate in 2 Olympic Games, which is really extremely passionate about swimming.
Moreover, this internal drive is really extraordinary and amazingly terrifying!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="188">5 Where does the internal drive come from? </h1>
Almost everyone around her is figuring out where her inner drive comes from. This includes coaches, opponents, friends, family, and more. Let's see what they say.
"Ledecky is a mystery," said Dave Marsh, coach of the U.S. Olympic women's swimming team, "and I can feel her hunger during training and competition." I wanted to figure out why, because it was so inconsistent with what we had always believed. Ledecky comes from a wonderful family and can easily have everything she wants; she's a kind girl who doesn't seem to have any dark side — but she just has endless energy, even in training. ”
Dave Marsh couldn't understand Ledecky's animal-hungry feeling in the pool, and in fact no one could answer, "What the hell is she after?" What kind of results can make her satisfied. Where does her anger at less than ideal details come from? "We have no solution to these problems, and what we can observe is that her little universe is always burning, never falling down for a moment."
Ledecky took the lead, leaving all his opponents behind
Michael phelps. "She reminds me of my childhood self," Phelps said, "and Ledecky is fearless, which is very rare among female athletes." She paddled like a man; she became unbeatable as a result. Nothing stood in her way. ”
"She swims like a man. I've never seen a female swimmer like her, and she actually beat me in training, leaving me there without knowing how to happen. She flew past me. I can only be there. U.S. men's swimming team athlete Rochte said.
"Your training in the 1500m will hurt you over short distances," he said. "Your physiological system can help you sprint, which can hurt the long distance training you do. Not because it's overlooked; It is actually being offset. She swims 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1500, all of which have different physiological systems, which is crazy. Roddy Gaines said he was a three-time Olympic gold medalist.
"There's no panacea," Gemmel said. "She doesn't have this incredible arm span. She wasn't webbed. You look at Katie, just like Michael, and you realize that the difference is in their hearts. Their interest in competition, their unwillingness to fail, and their courage to take on challenges. It's not just the challenge of the game, it's a huge part, but it also includes the challenge of training. Ledecky, he said, "has the nerves of an assassin." ”
"Beyond the pool? Ledecky was unusually calm," said Sue Chen, the coach who started coaching Ledecky in 2015, "I've seen her climb into the pool because she didn't do her best, as if every day was a new start." When I asked how the kids were doing as I left the game, she would text me to report it. The other 19-year-olds weren't as patient as she was. "How is she preparing for the race?" Like a bull in a fence, she would rush out as soon as someone opened the door. I've never seen a girl with such an attitude. Good fellow, I can only be deeply sorry for her competitors. ”
"She's just too calm," Catherine said, "and we're all trying to find out why." ”
Is it family inherited? It is said that Ledecky has been like this since he was a child, such as when he broke his arm at the age of 9 and did not shed a tear. Even in college, she wouldn't talk to anyone when she was sick. It's a lot like her grandfather, Edward (Bud) Hagen. He also rarely mentioned his ordeal during the war: in 1943, in the third week of the war, during the Battle of Cape Gloucester in New Guinea, next to piles of corpses, the 26-year-old needed to dodge bullets and artillery fire endlessly.
"It's a human being found in a billion people," said Washington Wizards boss Ted Leonsis, an old friend and colleague of the Ledecky family. "She has a very special family, and she's a very gifted person – with a high degree of self-actualization and self-awareness, otherworldly instincts and intelligence, full of talent, and incredibly motivated. It all comes naturally.
"She is by far the greatest athlete in the world," Said Michael M. J. Joyner said he is an anesthesiologist and researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, specializing in human manifestations and physiology. "She has the biggest advantage in international sports, with an edge of 1% or 2%."
Perhaps we can conclude that although Ledecky does not have any innate advantages in physical fitness, her psychology, especially her endurance in the face of difficulties, is different from ordinary people, and she has a similar, powerful, and transcendent heart with her grandfather.
Perhaps in the eyes of others is a huge difficulty, in her eyes is commonplace, so such as training, improving performance and other things that ordinary people feel very difficult and painful, she does not have a sense of difficulty, so there is no need for a strong internal drive to overcome. Every day was boring training, for her, just doing what she liked to do or needed to do, just like her grandfather had to dodge bullets and artillery fire every day next to piles of corpses, without feeling pain, leaving no shadows, and not having to talk.
We can boldly guess that people like Ledecky, psychologists are most likely not needed, 9 years old broke hands will not cry, pain is not an obstacle, but also need money, honor, ranking, win temptation? It didn't feel like it was needed at all, it was all too cheesy, and it was already too much for her to be attractive.
Ledecky's Olympic gold medal Source: Network
I felt more and more that when we asked her where her internal drive came from, we were actually in the wrong direction. Because she let us see a kind of human being, the heart is so strong that it does not need the external driving force that ordinary people need at all, it is already a perpetual motion machine that never stops, belonging to 1%, or one of the most powerful self-pushers in the history of one billion people. So in the eyes of most of us ordinary people, we are very surprised, how can she be like a never-ending motor, and in her consciousness, she may feel that you have broken your leg, just a little injured, just training, what is the difficulty?
Those who need internal motivation are ordinary human beings who need to be cultivated, and Ledecky, who does not need to be cultivated, naturally has the eternal power to overcome difficulties that most ordinary people lack. Of course, psychological quality and physical quality also have innate factors, but in addition, the acquired environment and cultivation are also very important, which will also seriously affect and change people's psychological endurance. In addition to the strong heart that is beyond ordinary people, Laidecky has given her no pressure, no worries about material conditions, world-class coaches, the trust and encouragement of coaches' families, countless opportunities to play, etc., which have also strengthened her psychological advantage and brought this advantage to the extreme.
If there is a brain science expert, can you monitor Ledecky's head to see what substances are more or less in the head of a person with a strong heart like Ledecky, and what is different from ordinary people. It may also be a very important reference for us to choose athletes in the future.
And ledecky's presence is changing our perceptions. We have always believed that sports, art, etc. require extremely high innate physical talent, but any physical quality such as arm span, height, shoe size and other physical qualities are very ordinary Ledecki, but can rely on a strong heart beyond ordinary people, and even can greatly and again break the world record, beyond the innate advantages of the body, beyond the disadvantages of gender, let us realize that in addition to the innate advantages, psychological talent can also break the world record athletes.
One has to wonder where the limits of man really are? If Phelps' physical fitness + Ledecky's psychological quality, how much more can the swimming record improve?
Ledecky and Phelps are grouped together with two generations of swimming leaders
Born in 1997, Ledecky is only 24 years old, and she hopes to participate in two Olympic Games in the future, and we are waiting for how much she can improve the world record and how many surprises she can bring to us.