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In this Hang Up and Listen Olympics Extra, Josh Levin speaks with swim coach Terry Laughlin about what makes Katie Ledecky so fast in the water. Plus, David Epstein of ProPublica talks about how 43-year-old gold medal–winning cyclist Kristin Armstrong defies the sports age curve.
Here are links to some of the articles and other items mentioned on the show:
- On Wednesday, U.S. field hockey beat Japan 6–1 to advance to the Olympic quarterfinals.
- Though the U.S. men were eliminated from the rugby sevens competition, New England Patriots safety Nate Ebner scored a try in the team’s 26–0 win over Brazil.
- Kazakhstan’s Dmitriy Balandin won gold in men’s 200-meter breaststroke. The correct anthem, not the fake one from Borat, was played.
- Katie Ledecky anchored the United States’ 4-by-200-meter freestyle relay team to a gold medal on Wednesday.
- The Washington Post’s Dave Sheinin on how Ledecky became so fast.
- In 2015, swim coach Terry Laughlin wrote about what makes Ledecky so efficient in the water.
- Follow Laughlin on Twitter. Buy his book Total Immersion.
- Follow David Epstein on Twitter and buy his book The Sports Gene.
- Kristin Armstrong, a 43-year-old cyclist, just won her third Olympic gold medal.
- Josh’s Olympics Extra Tom: In the 2000 Olympics, Eric Moussambani of Equatorial Guinea swam the 100-meter freestyle in 1:52:72, more than a minute slower than the winning time of Pieter van den Hoogenband and also slower than the 200-meter world record.
Podcast production and edit by Dan Bloom and Efim Shapiro.
Our intern is Laura Wagner.
You can email us at hangup@slate.com.