Morning Distribution for Thursday, July 29, 2021

A [FiveThirtyEight]( email [Morning Distribution]( Thursday, July 29, 2021 Your daily briefing from FiveThirtyEight --------------------------------------------------------------- The Morning Story [Swimming – Olympics: Day 5]( [No One Can Catch Katie Ledecky In The Mile]( By [Jake Lourim]( The women’s 1,500-meter swim [made its Olympic debut]( Wednesday in Tokyo, which meant NBC’s camera operators experienced a struggle previously known to only a few others: They had to film gold medalist Katie Ledecky’s [race]( and make it look close. “She’s got a trail group of three swimmers below her,” announcer Dan Hicks said about halfway through the race, but about 10 seconds later, the broadcast cut to a tighter camera angle that showed Ledecky as if she were swimming in an empty pool. When you combine her history in the 1,500-meter and 800-meter freestyle, which she will race [later this week]( Ledecky’s dominance in long-distance swimming is unprecedented — to say nothing of the range that allows her to excel in the [400- and 200-meter]( the relay of which she anchored to a silver medal on Thursday, and even the 100-meter events. But until this week, she hadn’t had a chance to showcase what might be her best event on an Olympic stage, because the mile race wasn’t part of the program for women. In part because Ledecky has been so [captivating in that event]( the Olympic committee added it for the Tokyo Games. It’s difficult to compare Ledecky’s success in this event to any other in swimming, let alone any other sport. At the [2017 world championships]( she won the 1,500-meter race by 19.07 seconds over second-place Mireia Belmonte of Spain — her most lopsided win on a world stage. That margin was wider than the gap between Belmonte and the fifth-place finisher. Ledecky bested Belmonte by 1.27 seconds per 100 meters, except she did it over and over again, 15 straight times. For comparison, the margins of victory in the women’s 100-meter freestyle race in the last four world championships were 0.39, 0.04, 0.18 and 0.55 seconds. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play]( [One Conference To Rule Them All]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe]( Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 47 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.