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The American women’s 1,500m freestyle finished first and second, while Katie Ledecky won her sixth gold medal since the 2012 London Games.
While Ledecky has been a fixture at the Olympics for almost a decade, silver medalist Erica Sullivan is the first-time Olympian and the 1,500 is her only event in Tokyo. His time of 15 minutes 41.41 seconds was four seconds behind Ledecky.
Sullivan said that her mother visited her family in Japan often in her life and speaks Japanese fluently. His mother’s family is in Ofuna, about 30 miles from Tokyo.
But the journey back home at Tokyo Aquatic Center was tough.
“I am proud of the mental health barriers I overcame when my father died in 2017 and it really bottomed out in 2018 from the stress of losing a 16-year-old parent and having to overcome anxiety, panic attacks, depression, PTSD, all of that,” Sullivan said last month. At the Olympic trials in Omaha.
A Las Vegas native and two-time open water national champion, Sullivan started swimming at age 6. said Swimming World Magazine, where she remembers being bullied for bringing rice bento boxes wrapped in seaweed to elementary school.
“It wasn’t until I graduated high school and I really started to crave my Asian heritage and culture and really focused on that,” she told the publication. “Fortunately, I found a community through anime audiences and found my own little network that I’m starting to love.”
Next month, he will begin classes at the University of Texas, where he will swim for the Longhorns.
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