National Geographic

1976First Olympicsteroid testing``````1968First Olympic drugtesting (narcoticsand amphetamines)``````1987Random drugtesting instituted1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010of laps during practice, she would suddenly pickup the tempo at the end, in the last 15 meters orso, increasing her kick furiously, Gemmell says.“In the midst of this most mundane work, shedid that, two to three times a week, for 15 min-utes to a half hour, finishing every rep that way.”Move ahead to the 200 freestyle in Rio.Because it was her shortest individual race, itwould be her closest. She couldn’t put otherswimmers away so decisively in such a shortrace, just four lengths of the pool. She knew thefinish would matter most. Sure enough, as swim-mers neared the finish in the 200-meter finals,Ledecky’s top rival, Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden,closed fast and drew even with Ledecky with15 meters to go. It looked like Sjostrom had themomentum and would win.But Ledecky wouldn’t lose. Why? It was allthat practice for the end of the race. “WhenSarah pulled up even, I thought, I’ve seen Katiefinish that race more than a thousand times.She’s going to get her hand to the wall first.”And she did. “No wonder she can do that inthe pressure cooker at Rio,” Gemmell says. “She``````knew exactly what she was doing in practice,over and over again.”Ledecky’s overall performance in Rio was onefor the history books. But she and Gemmell hadforetold it three years earlier, after she broke the800-meter freestyle world record. They weremusing about how much faster she wanted to goin the 800- and 400-meter freestyles in 2016, andLedecky wrote down her goals on a Styrofoamfloat she used in practice and carried with her tomeets around the world. Her new world recordfor the 800 freestyle was 8:13.86. Ledecky’sgoal? 8:05. It seemed crazy: Breaking her ownworld record would be one thing, but by almostnine seconds?During the next three years, Ledecky kept low-ering her world record in the 800 freestyle. Byearly 2016 she had dropped her record to 8:06.68.In Rio she crushed the field and set another newworld record: 8:04.79.This made Gemmell wonder: “What if we hadsaid eight minutes flat? We don’t know wherethe limit is. We set goals that were unheard ofthree years before Rio. Once Katie reached them,``````The steroid eraThe introduction of steroidsaffected women’s recordsmore than men’s, perhapsbecause anabolic steroidsincrease testosterone, whichis naturally occurring in onlysmall amounts in women.``````Dominant KenyansOver the past twodecades, Kenyan men(outlined above) havedominated the mara-thon, posting nearly 60percent of each year’stop 10 fastest times.``````Concentrated powerLeaderboards of lesspopular sports like shotput are dominatedby a few individuals,such as New Zealand’sValerie Adams(outlined above).``````FASTER, HIGHER, SMARTER, STRONGER 61