Bethesda native and swimming superstar Katie Ledecky won her first medal of the 2024 Olympics, taking the bronze medal in the 400-meter freestyle final Saturday at the summer games in Paris.
Ledecky ‘s third-place finish in the race won by Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus, 23, marked her 11th Olympic medal. Canadian Summer McIntosh, 17, took the silver medal.
Once dominant in the race, Ledecky, 27, was considered the underdog to Titmus, who won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Though Ledecky trailed Titmus throughout Saturday’s race, her third-place win marks her third medal in the event.
The summer games mark the fourth Olympics for Ledecky, who burst into a global spotlight after winning a gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle at the 2012 London games when she was just 15.
The 400-meter freestyle was the first of four events for Ledecky during the Paris games. She’ll also compete in the 400-, 800- and 1500-meter freestyle events, and is poised to become the most decorated female Olympic swimmer of all time.
Joining Ledecky on the U.S. Olympic swimming team are fellow graduates of the Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda: Phoebe Bacon and Erin Gemmell.
The Paris Olympics will be Gemmell’s first time competing on the world stage, while Bacon competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Ledecky previously won 10 medals while competing in three Olympic games.
“I am extremely excited to be headed to Paris with Erin and Katie,” Bacon, a Chevy Chase resident, said in June. “I think it is just such a special thing to have three of us from the same area and the same high school all on one Olympic team together, competing with each other and cheering each other on—this is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity.”
More than 800 Stone Ridge community members attended a pep rally Thursday afternoon at the private Catholic girls school to cheer on the alums. Friends and family made signs, put on Olympics-themed temporary tattoos or showed their support with giant cutouts of the athletes’ heads.
The three Olympians gave a shout-out to their former school in several videos that played during the pep rally.
“I’m a Stone Ridge girl,” Ledecky said in the video filmed in the school’s aquatic center. “I’ve spent so many hours in this pool, training, competing for the Gators, having so much fun with my teammates and classmates. And I hope that all of you are having that same fun.”