With three graduates headed to Paris next month to swim for the U.S. Olympic team, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda is gearing up to celebrate its star athletes.
The private Catholic school announced this week it is planning a community “red, white, and blue Olympic Pep Rally” on July 25—the day before the Opening Ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympics—on its campus in support of Katie Ledecky, Phoebe Bacon and Erin Gemmell.
Head of School Catherine Ronan Karrels and Head Varsity Swimming and Diving Coach Bob Walker were among a contingent from Bethesda who were in attendance last week as the three graduates earned their spots on the team during the 2024 U.S Olympic swim trials held in Indianapolis. Ledecky, 27, graduated in 2015, while Bacon 21, followed in 2020 and the 19-year-old Gemmell in 2023.
Karrels, who graduated from Stone Ridge in 1986, said she watched as Ledecky and Gemmell competed in the 200-meter freestyle final and made the relay team together. “And when Phoebe made the team, within seconds of completing her swim I received a text from Katie with a ‘Wooooohooo!!!’ ” she said.
“I know they will be wearing their Stone Ridge blue and gold under their Team USA red, white, and blue,” adds Walker, who coached all three swimmers at Stone Ridge.
The summer games will mark the fourth Olympics for Ledecky, a superstar 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.
“I am extremely excited to be headed to Paris with Erin and Katie,” says Bacon of Chevy Chase. “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 definitely a once in a lifetime kind of opportunity.”
In total, 20 women were named to the 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Swim Team. With Stone Ridge alumnae earning three of those spots, Stone Ridge Gators make up 15% of the team.
“It is wonderful that three young women from our community are on the USA women’s Olympic swim team,” says Ledecky’s mother, Mary Gen Ledecky of Bethesda. “I have seen all three grow up in the sport, but I have also seen them grow as smart, wonderful women who are interested in their studies, in their communities and in doing good for the world. I’ll be cheering for them all, and for TEAM USA once the games begin.”
The trio of swimmers have long known each other. Ledecky and Gemmell met 12 years ago when Gemmell’s father, Bruce Gemmell, coached Ledecky at the Nation’s Capital Swim Club in Bethesda. In awe of the older swimmer, Gemmell says shedressed up like Ledecky for Halloween in 2013 at age 8, borrowing a Ledecky swim cap through her father’s connection.
Ledecky and Bacon also attended Little Flower School, a private Catholic elementary school at 5601 Massachusetts Ave. in Bethesda, at the same time. According to Ledecky and Bacon, when Bacon was in pre-kindergarten and Ledecky was in fourth grade at the school, they were assigned to be “buddies.”
“[She] ended up on the 2021 Tokyo Olympic swim team with me, competing in the 200 backstroke,” writes Ledecky in her new memoir, Just Add Water: My Swimming Life. In the book released June 11, the seven-time gold medalist chronicles her prolific athletic career. “There must be, forgive the pun, something in the DMV water.”
When Ledecky wasn’t celebrating her fellow Stone Ridge friends’ swimming achievements, she lived up to expectations at the trials with victories in the 200-, 400-, 800- and 1500-meter freestyle events, securing her Paris roster spot. She is poised to become the most decorated female Olympic swimmer of all time.
Bacon, a fifth-year senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, finished second in the 200-meter backstroke to make her second straight Olympic team by .07 seconds. Gemmell, a sophomore at the University of Texas, finished fourth in the 200-meter freestyle, securing a spot on the 4×200 freestyle relay squad alongside Ledecky.
This will be the first Olympic Games for Gemmell, who earned a silver in the 4×200 freestyle relay on the 2023 World Championship team. Her brother Andrew competed in the 2012 Olympics in London.
“I’m honored to be able to go to Paris, and I’m especially excited to be going with Katie and Phoebe,” Gemmell says. “Going to the Olympics has been a huge dream of mine, and it’s astounding to me that I’ll be doing it with two other people from Stone Ridge, especially given how relatively small of a school it is.”
Stone Ridge’s pep rally, tentatively scheduled to run from 4:30 to 6 p.m., will be held on its campus at 9101 Rockville Pike. All community members and Stone Ridge Gator fans are welcome to attend and are asked to RSVP, the school said in a release.