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People from all over the sports world, from athletes to arena staff, tell the New York Times how their lives have changed during the coronavirus pandemic.
It was a Saturday in California and five-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky had a competition to look forward to later in the afternoon. Not the swim meet at Mission Viejo that had originally filled his schedule for last weekend, but a virtual game, Cards Against Humanity, with a group of about 20 family members, mostly cousins, organized by his older brother, Michael. .
Last month in Des Moines, at a fit for the Olympic trials, Ledecky produced his fastest 1,500-meter freestyle since May 2018, increasing his chances of winning up to five more Olympic gold medals, including the “Ledecky Slam “at the 200-400-800-1,500 freestyles, at the Tokyo Games. But within a week of returning to his Stanford training base from Iowa, he was struggling to find space in the pool after university facilities closed due to the coronavirus crisis. The Olympics have been postponed a year and the university remains closed, but Ledecky, who is from Bethesda, Maryland, and her training partner, four-time Olympic medalist Simone Manuel, continue to swim daily in a two-lane family, Backyard Pool 25-yard walk to the Stanford campus. In addition to her daily bath, Ledecky, 23, takes refuge in her two-bedroom apartment near Stanford, but is kept busy.
After taking a year out of school to focus on her Olympic readiness, Ledecky, a psychology student at Stanford, re-enrolled in online classes for the spring term, which began April 6, 13 days later. that the Olympics were postponed. The four courses he is taking include one on infectious diseases.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and condensed.
Q: How did you come to take an infectious disease class?
Ledecky: It is global change and emerging infectious disease, and it actually meets my last general requirement. It is very much about the different environmental and social factors that cause these outbreaks. They go through SARS and MERS and H.I.V., but there is definitely a focus on the coronavirus. Our teachers are giving us an idea of the data they are tracking. It’s a lot about bats and markets and learning how to calculate transmission rates and contractibility and all of those different things. It has been really fascinating.
How much are you venturing outside?
I’ve been able to swim in someone’s backyard pool and that’s about a five-minute drive, and that’s basically the only time I go out. I feel lucky to be able to do my aerobic training so I don’t have to run or bike. I have some bands and a couple of weights and a pull-up bar. I have a little balcony, and there’s a part that has a little bit of space, so that’s where I make my land dry to get a little more fresh air.
I haven’t been to a grocery store in about a month. I just used grocery delivery apps. I’ve been doing that and HelloFresh, that U.S.A. Swimming got us a discount at one point, so I signed up. You choose three recipes per week, and each one has two servings, so I get two meals from each. I’ve been taking all my meat out of that and then I get snacks and food for breakfast and lunch in supermarkets.
You swam so well in Des Moines the first full weekend of March. How do you process everything that has happened since then?
I felt great with my swim and felt it was indicative of how I was training. It was nice to see him starting to appear in encounters. I was excited to go back to work. It’s hard when you’re fine and you feel good about things and then things change. But I feel good about where it was and I think I can keep that, replicate it, and remember how it felt.
There is so much uncertainty about next year: What meetings will we have? What will be our next meeting? Can we train a long course? Will we be able to train as a team and with other people? All of that. It’s hard to really think about the following, so I’m just thinking day by day.
I have been doing a lot of virtual video calls with other teams and groups and it is hard to see the younger athletes fighting with him who have so much love for the sport and it has been a big part of his routine and social life. and all that
Are you worried about the domino effects on the sport when it was already announced that outdoor pools will be closed this summer in New York?
I don’t know what will happen with the summer leagues like the one I started with. That’s a great gateway to sports, the way many young children find their way. That’s a year wasted on that. I am concerned about small club teams. Even thinking about how workouts will change when things return to normal. Will teams have to limit the number of people in the lanes? Perhaps groups will only be able to swim once a day instead of doubles because they have to extend training times. I think it will change some of the mental aspects of sports training.
What is the non-swimming activity you hope to do the most once the block is lifted?
I think I see my family. I don’t know if that will mean that I travel to see them or that they travel to see me. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to hug them, but just being with them will be good. It is even more difficult to think of my extended family, especially my two grandmothers. Will I see you again? It is more difficult to think about that. We all stayed in very good contact. We have been seeing mass together on Sundays with my grandmother in North Dakota. We meet on Zoom and share a screen and live Mass.
During the time just before closing, I considered going to other parts of the country, including North Dakota to my grandmother’s house because there is an indoor pool there. But I finally decided to stay here. It got to the point where there really wasn’t much open space anywhere and it’s probably best not to travel if I don’t need it.
