Katie Ledecky, 24, is now the most successful Olympic swimmer ever – and Tod Spieker’s family in Atherton, California also played their part. Spieker himself, a 74-year-old real estate agent, as well as his daughter Lindy Hopman, his grandsons Beau, 5, Delaney, 7, and Ben, 8. Tod Spieker provided the pool. With the children it was enough that they were just there. Beau turned the tricycle, Delaney showed her pickled cucumbers. And Katie Ledecky really enjoyed it all: “It was more than just swimming,” she said. “It was an opportunity to go outside, to move around. The members of the family there were the only people I saw for three months.”
It was March 2020, Corona lockdown in California as well, and the Tokyo Olympics were due to take place in three and a half months – before they were postponed by a year. The bathrooms closed everywhere, even at Stanford University, where Ledecky studies and trains, nothing worked. So what to do
“Death, could we use your pool?” – “For whom?” – “Katie Ledecky”
Soon after, Tod Spieker got a call from a neighbor who works in Stanford on behalf of swim coach Greg Meehan. “He said, ‘Death, could we use your pool?’ I asked: ‘For whom?’ And he said: ‘Katie Ledecky and Simone Manuel.’ “Spieker didn’t have to think long:” They should call me. We’ll do it. “
Spieker recently told NBC and similarly previously to the magazine The Athletic. Journalists now come to Atherton more often. Sent during the 400 meter freestyle final at the start of the games the newspaper The Mercury News a photographer: You see the whole family gathered in front of the television, the children in Ledecky jerseys, screaming, crossing their fingers, and crying at the end. Ledecky was only second. Yes, said Tod Spieker, “it generates a portion of extra interest when you know that they trained right here in a small backyard pool”.
Spieker’s house is only a few kilometers away from the campus. A pool in the garden is almost part of the basic equipment of the upper class in Atherton. But this one is special: two lanes, 25 yards (a good 23 meters) long, and everything else there, overflow channels, flags for orientation when swimming in the back, a timing system. Spieker used to be a well-known swimmer himself. “We heard stories from athletes who had to train in rivers, it was terrible,” Spieker told NBC. Better a Katie Ledecky in your own front yard. They came by six days a week, Ledecky, Manuel – the Olympic champion over 100 meters freestyle from Rio 2016 – and the trainer Meehan. The two women always had their swimsuits on, snorkels, kickboards and fins in a large bag.
Katie Ledecky still wins, but not as superior as before. Here after her gold medal in the 800 meter freestyle.
(Photo: Oli Scarff / AFP)
Katie Ledecky only hinted at this story very subtly in Tokyo, she doesn’t want to give the impression that she of all people had to suffer particularly from the pandemic. In the end, the opposite was the case: Tod Spieker’s daughter and grandchildren became like a second family for her, while she didn’t see her own for more than a year because she is at home on the other end of the United States. But also on Saturday, the day of her sixth Olympic individual gold, she was asked again about the Spieker family. Did the Spiekers watch their victory in the 800 meter freestyle? “Yes, we are in contact,” she said. “We send each other messages, also from the children. I am very grateful to them. It is not a matter of course that you will be taken into a strange family for three months.”
Above all, the backyard story tells of the fact that every athlete here in Tokyo carries their own corona episode with them. And that you have to classify the times and placements against this background. Who benefited from the postponement of the games, for whom were they a year late? Who came up with the right plan to preserve form, who came up with the wrong one? Sprinter Caeleb Dressel, who not only won his third Olympic gold medal in these games on Saturday over the 100 meter butterfly, but also set a new world record (49.45 seconds), also had something to tell. But he also sent in advance that he “definitely did not want to give the impression that the problem with Corona was my training conditions”. The athletes just had their athlete problems. In Dressel’s case, they looked like he had to use his trainer’s garage as a makeshift weight room.
Sarah Köhler had also hoped for a medal, but in the end only came in seventh
Katie Ledecky does not want to blame Corona for the fact that she appeared much more vulnerable in Tokyo than before. All of their times were far above their own world records. Over 400 meters she had to admit defeat to the Australian Ariarne Titmus, 20, and only finished second. Over 200 meters freestyle only fifth – Titmus won there too. She was a little older now, said Ledecky, swimming “hurts differently”. And she has set herself an even more demanding program than in Rio: The 1500 meter freestyle is now also part of the Olympic program. A third reason is that something has grown up in Titmus that she has not known before: a real competitor.
Sarah Köhler had calculated a chance for a medal in the 800 meter freestyle, and with her time from the preliminary run, 8: 17.33 minutes, that would have worked out too. But then she couldn’t get up to speed from the first lane and was only seventh in 8: 24.56 minutes. Maybe everything was a bit too much after her bronze medal over the 1500 meters, suspected her coach Bernd Berkhahn in Tokyo. After all, no one can take that from Köhler: the first German medal in pool swimming since 2008.
Now with real competition: Katie Ledecky has to get used to the fact that she has grown up a real rival in the Australian Ariarne Titmus.
(Photo: Attila Kisbenedek / AFP)
A Katie Ledecky naturally sets completely different records. She is now seven times Olympic champion, six times on individual routes, no other woman has done that before her. She won the 800 meter freestyle in London in 2012, in Rio in 2016 and in Tokyo in 2021. Don’t you have to stop there? Katie Ledecky laughed out loud at this question. She is thinking of Paris 2024, and Los Angeles 2032 is at least attractive to her. “And Brisbane 2032 – isn’t that your hometown,” she asked Ariarne Titmus, who was sitting next to her at the press conference. “I’m still young! I love the races, I love the training.”
How much fun it can be to train can also be seen on the private photos showing the death of Spieker’s daughter Lindy The Athletic has made available. Even in the backyard pool while the world was standing still, exercising was often a fun thing to do.