Swimming

U.S. Olympic swimmer Lilly King got engaged Thursday during the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials.

King's fiancé proposed after she qualified to represent Team USA in the 200-meter breaststroke at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

King already qualified for her first Olympic event, the 100-meter breaststroke, during an earlier race at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana.

She is now become the first U.S. swimmer to swim both the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke at three consecutive Olympic Games.

King heads to Paris already having won five Olympic medals, including golds in the 100-meter breaststroke and 4x100 medley relay at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

She also claimed silver medals in the relay and the 200-meter breaststroke at the 2020 Tokyo Games, where she also won bronze in the 100-meter breaststroke.

King recorded the all-time record for the 100-meter breaststroke with a time of 1:04.13, a standard set in 2017 that still stands today.

The former Indiana swimmer has stated that she does not plan to compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Games, David Woods reported for IndyStar. If that holds true, King has made her final Olympic trials a memorable one.

Katie Ledecky has already established herself as one of the greatest swimmers in Olympics history, but she has her eye on four more gold medals at the 2024 Paris Games.

She told reporters Tuesday she plans on competing in the 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle individual events along with the 4x200m relay. That means she will likely drop the 200m individual freestyle competition to focus on the other four events.

Ledecky qualified for the 200m individual freestyle at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials, but her decision to focus on the other events would open up a spot for someone else. Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated noted that "presumably" means third-place finisher Paige Madden will participate in the 200m individual at the Games.

Regardless of how many events she competes in, Ledecky will be one of the Olympic headliners from an American perspective.

She already has seven Olympic gold medals and three silver medals on an illustrious resume that also includes 21 world championship titles. The Paris Games will be the fourth of her career after London 2012, Rio de Janeiro 2016 and Tokyo 2020.

The legendary swimmer broke onto the international stage with an 800m freestyle gold as a 15-year-old at the London Olympics and then was an unstoppable force in Rio de Janeiro with golds in the 800m freestyle, 400m freestyle, 200m freestyle and 4x200m freestyle relay in addition to a silver in the 4x100m freestyle.

The bar was set so high that two golds, two silvers and a fifth-place finish (200m freestyle) in the Tokyo Games was almost a disappointment by her impossibly high standards.

Anything but another handful of medals in Paris would be a shock at this point, and competing in four events instead of the five she competed in during the last two Olympics could allow her to preserve more energy and be even better with medals on the line.

That is a daunting thought to the rest of the field.

Katie Ledecky has qualified for her second Olympic event after winning the women's 200m freestyle final Monday night.

Ledecky finished first with a time of 1:55.22, just beating runner-up Claire Weinstein. Ledecky, who has won six gold medals and 10 total medals across three Olympic appearances, also qualified for the 400m on Saturday.

Having already qualified for the 200m and 400m, Ledecky will also participate in the 800m and 1500m time trials this week.

Now, fans await Ledecky's decision about whether she will swim in the event or just participate in the relays. According to The Athletic's Nicole Auerbach, Ledecky said she is "thrilled" to be on the relay team, which seems to indicate she will at least be on the relay team.

At the most recent Olympics in 2021, Ledecky won gold in the 800m and 1500m freestyle and won silver in the 400m freestyle and 4 x 200m freestyle relay. Her best Olympic showing remains her 2016 performance, when she won gold in the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle as well as the 4 x 200m freestyle relay. That year, she also won silver in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay.

She will look to continue what has been a sensational Olympic run this summer.

Sunday's game between the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky was highlighted by a flagrant foul by Sky rookie Angel Reese on Fever rookie Caitlin Clark, and a new angle of the play was posted on social media.

Per Christine Brennan of USA Today, a courtside angle of Reese's foul was caught on camera by Jon Ledecky, the uncle of Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky and the owner of the New York Islanders. The ball even came his way and his nephew, Michael, had to swat it away:

Despite the hard foul, Clark put forth one of her best games of the season, finishing with a game-high 23 points while adding nine assists and eight rebounds to lead Indiana to a 93-81 victory. Reese contributed 11 points, 13 rebounds and five assists in the contest.

"Basketball play, I can't control the refs," Reese said of her flagrant foul on Clark. "They affected the game, obviously, a lot today."

Clark agreed with Reese's assessment of the play, saying, "It's just a part of basketball. It is what it is. Just trying to make a play on the ball and get the block. It happens."

The Fever and Sky will meet again on June 23, so fans will surely be excited to see how things play out between Clark and Reese when they share the floor.

American swimmer Gretchen Walsh made history during a semifinal heat at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials in Indianapolis.

Walsh clocked 55.18 seconds in the 100-meter women's butterfly Saturday to set a new world record in the event.

Walsh's time beat out Swedish swimmer Sarah Sjöström, who recorded the previous fastest time of 55.48 seconds at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, by more than half of a second.

She said after the event that she was "over the moon" to set the new standard.

"I'm so happy," Walsh said, per NBC. "It's such a surreal experience... I'm trying to convince myself that that just happened, so I'm just in awe."

Walsh entered the semifinal heat as the top seed after recording a time of 55.94 in a preliminary heat. That already ranked as the sixth-fastest race in the event's history, per Yanyan Li of SwimSwam.

Walsh, a Nashville native, is a senior at the University of Virginia who helped UVA become the third swim team in NCAA history to win four consecutive team titles.

The 21-year-old now has the chance to qualify for her first Olympic team if she ranks within the top two finishers during the Sunday night final. She will be competing against experienced Olympians including 2020 Tokyo medalists Torri Huske, Regan Smith and Claire Curzan, the Associated Press' Paul Newberry reported.

Make it four Olympics for Katie Ledecky.

The legendary United States swimmer qualified for the Paris Games on Saturday after winning the 400m freestyle at the U.S. Trials.

Ledecky finished with a time of 3:58.35 and is expected to also qualify in the 1500 and 800 freestyle, where she'll arguably be the favorite to win gold as the current world-record holder in those events.

She won't hold that distinction in the 400m free—Australia's Ariarne Titmus beat her in the event at the Tokyo Games and is the current world-record holder—but Ledecky will be expected to podium, given her pedigree.

"I know I have to be really fast in that event to compete for gold, or even to win a medal," Ledecky told reporters earlier this year regarding the event.

The 27-year-old is a seven-time Olympic gold medalist and 10-time medalist overall, making her arguably the greatest female swimmer in history and one of the most decorated athletes in her sport, period.

So nobody would be surprised if she made her mark in Paris, perhaps even in the 400m free.

"She's very capable. I see it in practice all the time," Anthony Nesty, the men's Olympic swimming coach and Ledecky's personal coach at the Gator Swim Club, told Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post. "Personally, I think she's due for a really good 400. Because the last two years, they've been good, but not at a level she wants to compete at. I think she's well overdue for putting one together."

No athlete holds more Olympic gold medals than swimmer Michael Phelps, who won 23 overall and eight alone at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Now an eight-piece oil painting collection (the "Golden Eight") commemorating the 2008 performance is being shopped for $2 million, per TMZ Sports.

Phelps signed all of the pieces, which owner Todd Patkin commissioned in 2008, per TMZ Sports. Renowned artist Brian Fox performed the works.

Per Swimming World, Patkin "is currently accepting offers for the entire collection of eight paintings with an asking price of $250,000 per painting," specifically.

Phelps entered the 2008 Summer Olympics with a tremendous amount of hype as he had a chance to break former American swimmer Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in one Games with eight of his own.

Remarkably, Phelps met that tremendous hype and earned top honors in the 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter butterfly, 200-meter freestyle, 200-meter individual medley, 400-meter individual medley, 4x100 meter freestyle relay, 4x200 meter freestyle relay and 4x100 meter medley relay.

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Katie Ledecky says faith in the Olympic anti-doping system is at an "all-time low" following news that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for a banned substance (trimetazidine) before the Tokyo Olympics but were still allowed to compete, per the Associated Press.

"It's hard going into Paris knowing that we're going to be racing some of these athletes," Ledecky said in an interview on the next edition of CBS News Sunday Morning.

"And I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low."

Michael S. Schmidt and Tariq Panja of the New York Times broke news on the matter in April:

"Twenty-three top Chinese swimmers tested positive for the same powerful banned substance seven months before the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021 but were allowed to escape public scrutiny and continue to compete after top Chinese officials secretly cleared them of doping and the global authority charged with policing drugs in sports chose not to intervene.

"Several of the athletes who tested positive — including nearly half of the swimming team that China sent to the Tokyo Games — went on to win medals, including three golds. Many still compete for China and several, including the two-time gold medalist Zhang Yufei, are expected to contend for medals again at this year's Summer Games in Paris."

The NYT relayed that Chinada, the Chinese anti-doping agency, suggested the positive tests came from a "tainted food supply," and the NYT added that it's "a finding that some experts considered implausible."

Per the AP, Chinese authorities did not punish the athletes. The World Anti-Doping Agency stated in a Fact Sheet/FAQ on the matter that "the feedback from WADA's Science Department was ultimately that the contamination scenario was plausible and that there was no concrete scientific element to challenge it."

Ledecky and Team USA notably took silver in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay, which China won. Two of the gold medalist swimmers (Yang Junxuan, Zhang Yufei) were among that group of 23 to test positive.

Ultimately, Ledecky wants answers regarding the logistics behind the process and solutions to current anti-doping system problems to correct any concerns going forward.

"I'd like to see some accountability here," Ledecky said. "I'd like to see some answers as to why this happened the way it did. And I'd really like to see that steps are taken for the future so that we can regain some confidence in the global system."

She added: "I think the whole case has to be reexamined independently and thoroughly, and all the information needs to be out there."

Ledecky, who has also won 21 gold medals in World Championship competition, is set to compete in her fourth Olympics.

Superstar Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky is one of 19 people who will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from United States President Joe Biden on Friday.

According to ESPN, Ledecky is one of two athletes who will be honored by Biden, along with Olympian Jim Thorpe, who died in 1953.

Ledecky, 27, has competed at each of the past three Olympics, and she will represent Team USA at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Ledecky is already a 10-time Olympic medalist, including seven golds.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is known as the highest civilian award in the U.S., and this year's crop of recipients is made up of those who accomplished historic firsts, per ESPN.

Ledecky has starred on the world stage for over a decade, winning gold in the 800-meter freestyle at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London at the age of 15.

Since then, she has set a plethora of records, including in the 800- and 1,500-meter freestyle races.

Additionally, Ledecky's six individual Olympic gold medals are the most ever by a women's swimmer, and her 16 individual gold medals at the world championships are the most in history by a woman or man.

In total, Ledecky has 21 gold medals and 26 total medals at the world championships, both of which are records for a female swimmer.

Thorpe is viewed as one of the greatest all-around athletes of all time, as he excelled in multiple sports.

In 1912, Thorpe won Olympic gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon in Stockholm, making him the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal while representing the United States.

Thorpe also went on to play in the NFL and Major League Baseball, and he is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.