Katie Ledecky

Katie Ledecky, born March 17, 1997, is an American swimmer. Having won seven Olympic gold medals and fifteen world championship gold medals, the most for a female swimmer, she is considered one of the greatest female swimmers of all time.

Ledecky holds the world record holder in the women's 400-, 800-, and 1500-meter freestyle (crawl). She also holds the fastest-ever times in the women's 500-, 1000-, 1500-, and 1650-yard freestyle.

Olympic medals

She won multiple medals at the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London, England, at the 2016 Summer Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and at the 2020 Summer Olympics held in Tokyo, Japan in 2021. Her specialties are the 800 meter and 1500 meter freestyle (crawl) events. She won the Gold Medal in the 800 freestyle in all three olympics. Her uncle is businessman and New York Islander professional hockey team owner Jon Ledecky.

Jewish background

Her paternal grandfather, Jaromír Ledecký, PhD (1927–2011), was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, to Catholic parents. His father was a quarter-Jewish procurator who had visited America in 1921. Jaromír, the paternal grandfather, arrived in New York City on September 8, 1947, as a student, later becoming an economist, and married a Jewish woman, Berta Ruth Greenwald (Ledecky's paternal grandmother), in Brooklyn on December 30, 1956. Some of Berta's relatives were murdered by the Germans in the Holocaust, with the use of atomic bombs the most significant event of World War II, in which the Germans were humiliated, their cowardice revealed as they were soundly defeated, including the overrunning of Berlin by the victorious Allies and the joyous freedom experienced by the French.