Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky is among the 19 people who will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday, according to an announcement from the White House.
Ledecky, 27, is one of the most decorated swimmers in U.S. history. She has won seven Olympic gold medals in her three trips to the Games — including six individual golds, the most ever for a female swimmer. And she is favored to add to that total at the 2024 Paris Olympics, which will begin July 26.
Ledecky has also won a whopping 21 medals at world championships and currently holds two world records, in the 800- and 1,500-meter freestyle events.
A Maryland native who swam collegiately at Stanford and now trains at the University of Florida, Ledecky is joined on the list of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients by another Olympic champion, the late Jim Thorpe.
Thorpe became the first Native American to win Olympic gold for the U.S. when he won both the pentathlon and decathalon at the 1912 Stockholm Games. However, he was stripped of those medals the following year after the American Athletic Union — the predecessor to the current national governing body, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee — determined that he had violated its amateurism rules.
It wasn’t until just a few years ago, 2022, that the International Olympic Committee changed course and started officially recognizing Thorpe as the lone Olympic champion in those two events.
Thorpe, who died in 1953, also starred on the football field, where he was one of the most dominant players in the sport’s burgeoning years in the U.S. He is a member of both of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and College Football Hall of Fame.
Ledecky and Thorpe are the latest athletes to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the nation’s highest civilian honor. The White House said it is given to American citizens “who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.”
President Biden gave the same award to Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe in 2022, while former president Donald Trump gave it to more than a dozen athletes or people associated with sports, including golfer Tiger Woods, baseball icon Babe Ruth, and legendary NBA player and executive Jerry West.
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @Tom_Schad.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Katie Ledecky, Jim Thorpe awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom
