NANTERRE, France — On a night when Léon Marchand completed an audacious double, Katie Ledecky proved again she’s a sure bet in swimming’s longest event.
Ledecky romped to the seventh Olympic gold medal of her brilliant career and 12th medal overall with a runaway victory in the 1,500-meter freestyle Wednesday at the Paris Games.
The 27-year-old Ledecky tied fellow Americans Dara Torres, Natalie Coughlin and Jenny Thompson for the most medals ever by a female swimmer. Ledecky already held the mark for most individual medals by a woman.
Ledecky led right from the start and steadily pulled away, touching in an Olympic-record 15 minutes, 30.02 seconds in an event that joined the women’s program at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
This was similar to the race three years ago: Ledecky far in front and everyone else racing for a silver.
France’s Anastasiia Kirpichinikova finished nearly a half lap behind but thrilled the home fans by claiming the silver in 15:40.35.
The bronze went to Germany’s Isabel Gose at 15:41.16.
After starting the Paris Games with a bronze in the 400 freestyle, this result looked more familiar for Ledecky.
She was clearly thrilled to be on top again, splashing the water and pumping her fist several times walking across the deck — a rare show of emotion for a stoic athlete who performs with machine-like efficiency.
Marchand’s double
Turns out, those comparisons to Michael Phelps weren’t farfetched at all when to comes to Léon Marchand.
They certainly weren’t a burden for the 22-year-old Frenchman.
Marchand completed one of the most audacious doubles in swimming history, winning the 200-meter butterfly and the 200 breaststroke about two hours apart at the Paris Games.
Two grueling races. Two very different strokes. Two Olympic records. Two gold medals.
Take that, Phelps.
Thrilling the home fans, Marchand claimed his second and third victories at La Defense Arena and stamped himself — with the Olympics not even a week old — as one of the faces of these games.
After rallying to beat world-record holder and defending Olympic champion Kristof Milak in the 200 fly with a finishing kick for the ages, Marchand made it look downright easy in the 200 breast.
He led all the way, touching in 2:05.85 as more than 15,000 fans — many of them holding up cardboard cutouts of his smiling face — nearly blew the roof off La Defense Arena.
“Léon! Léon! Léon!” they screamed, a chant that was sure to carry on through the night in Paris.
Swedish gold
Sarah Sjöström made her fifth Olympics a gold-medal celebration.
The 30-year-old Swedish veteran pulled off her own surge to the finish to win the 100 freestyle for the second gold of her brilliant career.
Sjöström had pared down her program at the last two world championships, swimming only the 50 freestyle. She decided to add the 100 at the Paris Games, and boy did that decision pay off.
Sjöström was only fourth at the turn but kicked into another gear on the return lap, touching in 52.16 seconds. The U.S. team settled for another silver medal — its eighth of the swimming competition — when Torri Huske finished in 52.29. Siobhan Haughey of Hong Kong took the bronze at 52.33, edging Australia’s Mollie O’Callaghan by one-hundredth of a second.
It was the fifth Olympic medal overall for Sjöström, who first competed at the 2008 Beijing Games where Phelps won a record eight golds. Her previous gold came in the 100 butterfly at the Rio de Janiero in 2016.
This victory might be the sweetest of all. She gasped in disbelief and pounded the water when she saw her time and, more important, the number beside it.
She was again an Olympic champion.