--- title: Rio Olympics 2016: Katie Ledecky Wins Third Gold Medal description: Swimming star Katie Ledecky won her third gold medal Wednesday. Her coach shared on Twitter a picture of the work that goes into her wins. canonical: https://time.com/4448397/rio-olympics-katie-ledecky-kristin-armstrong/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-11T17:11:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:03:07.900Z og:title: Katie Ledecky Practices Swimming in the Middle of the Night og:description: There's a reason why she's unstoppable og:url: https://time.com/4448397/rio-olympics-katie-ledecky-kristin-armstrong/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9f2200c2d4b8c021/6988a20e656a3ff891bccb6e/katie-ledecky-rio-olympics.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Katie Ledecky 3rd Gold Medal og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Katie Ledecky Practices Swimming in the Middle of the Night twitter:description: There's a reason why she's unstoppable twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9f2200c2d4b8c021/6988a20e656a3ff891bccb6e/katie-ledecky-rio-olympics.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Katie Ledecky Practices Swimming In the Middle of the Night > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. by [Jessie Van Amburg](https://time.com/author/jessie-van-amburg/) ## Jessie Van Amburg Aug 11, 2016 5:11 PM UTC  Katie Ledecky on Day 4 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium on August 9, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Katie Ledecky on Day 4 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium on August 9, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Al Bello/Getty Images by [Jessie Van Amburg](https://time.com/author/jessie-van-amburg/) ## Jessie Van Amburg Aug 11, 2016 5:11 PM UTC [Katie Ledecky](http://motto.time.com/4442999/rio-olympics-katie-ledecky-katinka-hosszu/) continues to dominate the swimming competition at the Olympics, earning her third gold medal Wednesday and her fourth overall for the Rio games. She is beloved by audiences and teammates, including fan Michael Phelps, and the announcers love her so much, they call out her name during other[ events](http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/08/katie-ledecky-is-the-new-yaaaaaaaaas.html). But Ledecky isn’t one to rest on her laurels. Her coach [Bruce Gemmell](http://www.delawareonline.com/story/sports/olympics/rio-2016/2016/08/10/rio-postcard-ledecky-appreciates-gemmells-coaching/88524722/) shared a picture on Twitter on Wednesday, showing a lone swimmer in an abandoned Rio pool. It was Katie Ledecky, still practicing at 1:15 a.m. > [](https://twitter.com/CoachGemmell/status/763616933501669376) That is what hard work looks like, everyone. Another female Olympian made her mark Wednesday. [Kristin Armstrong](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetorch/2016/08/10/489554062/-because-i-can-cyclist-kristin-armstrong-rides-to-third-gold-medal-at-age-42) won her third gold medal for the women’s time trial at age 42\. She became the only cyclist, male or female, to hold three consecutive gold medals in the same category. Armstrong, who turns 43 Thursday, actually came out of retirement to compete in the Olympics. Why? “Because I can.” “For all the moms out there, I hope that this was a very inspiring day,” Armstrong said after her victory. She has one son and is the director of community health at a hospital in Boise, Idaho. “I think that for so long we’ve been told that we should be finished at a certain age. And I think that there’s a lot of athletes out there that are actually showing that that’s not true.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4448397/rio-olympics-katie-ledecky-kristin-armstrong/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4448397/rio-olympics-katie-ledecky-kristin-armstrong/"},"headline":"Katie Ledecky Practices Swimming In the Middle of the Night","datePublished":"2016-08-11T17:11:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:03:07.900Z","description":"There's a reason why she's unstoppable","url":"https://time.com/4448397/rio-olympics-katie-ledecky-kristin-armstrong/","keywords":["motto","Summer Olympics","2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9f2200c2d4b8c021/6988a20e656a3ff891bccb6e/katie-ledecky-rio-olympics.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jessie Van Amburg","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jessie-van-amburg/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9f2200c2d4b8c021/6988a20e656a3ff891bccb6e/katie-ledecky-rio-olympics.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Katie Ledecky 3rd Gold Medal","caption":"katie ledecky rio olympics third gold medal late practice","creditText":"Al Bello/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4448397/rio-olympics-katie-ledecky-kristin-armstrong/","name":"Katie Ledecky Practices Swimming In the Middle of the Night"}}]}] ```