A very large campaign was launched via twitter yesterday to see Katie Ledecky in the top ten plays on ESPN Sport Center. After breaking the World Record in the 1500 freestyle by more than six seconds, Katie Ledecky took the fourth spot on the ESPN SportsCenter Top Ten Plays countdown.
SwimSwam, Dax Hill, and USA Swimming along with many others, were sending tweets and messages to SportsCenter asking them to add Ledecky’s World Record swim to their top 10 plays.
It is great to see swimming receiving mainstream recognition. Vlad Morozov, now swimming for Russia at the World Championships, swam at USC last year and made it in the top 10 plays in March for splitting 17.86 on USC’s 200 freestyle relay at the NCAA Championships. It is not often that you see swimmers recognized with football, baseball, basketball, and soccer players. It is exciting to see Katie Ledecky recognized for her outstanding performance.
As the sport grows, we will continue to see recognition from other mainstream media outlets, such as ESPN. The sport is growing, and ambassadors to the sport such as Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Missy Franklin, Katie Ledecky, and Vlad Morozov are helping to bring more attention to the sport.
The SportCenter twitter account, @SportsCenter, replied to the USA Swimming with the picture above and this:
“Ask and you shall receive! @katieledecky was a no-brainer for the #SCtop10 tonight!”
USA Swimming received almost 1,200 RT’s and 150 favorites in their tweet asking swim fans to help get Ledecky onto SportsCenter.
Editor Note: We’ve recently learned that USA Swimming’s call to action on Twitter was followed up with some additional work from their communication’s department. USA Swimming also contacted ESPN producers, encouraging them to include Ledecky on SportsCenter’s Top 10 Plays.
With two brilliant swims from out of the blue (from where I’m sitting), Katie has sparked a lot of excitement all over again. What an amazing dynamic athlete she is. She has all the tools in place and is making full use. I hope someday we hear about a physiologic study of her aerobic, anaerobic and buffering systems. Coach Gemmell says she’s “kinda average” with paddles, or tube, or kicking, in his coaching talk after Worlds 2013. Uh, huh. Right. I’d love to be that average… She’s a fearless attacker in any race, and it makes her really fun to watch. I agree that we swim fans are pretty starved for attention by the media. I appreciate swimswam and other… Read more »
sport center and the entire espn organization suck. who cares what they think. i remember when the 100 meter world record was broken in berlin four years ago they had some golf as the top story on their website.
One of the reasons we don’t see swimming on SportsCenter more often is because even when Swimmers do make it on the show, swim fans still find something to complain about. SportsCenter is a business, they want good ratings and positive reviews about the show. If swim fans are not going to provide that for them, they can easily find another impressive play. Making the list is something we should be happy about, not complaining about. You have to start from somewhere, we are not going to wake up tomorrow and regularly see swimming on highlight reels, but Swimming is making progress in the United States and that is something we should be excited about.
100% agree.
there’s also the awkward fact that ESPN is unlikely to air Universal Sports footage…since they’re essentially direct competitors (well, as close as it can get…)
BBC Sport website had Ledecky and Ruta as one of their headline stories last night.
Does anyone have a link to the actual video? I can’t find it anywhere
The full video of Katie’s race or the Sportscenter Top 10?
It’s great that she got in the top 10, but really, to break a WORLD RECORD in the 1500 at her age (or any age, for that matter….a WORLD record) should be a no brainer for #1, and not just for the week either. ESPN is so caught up in baseball players cheating that they forget to focus on the athletes that are deserving of attention. Swimming is gaining recognition and I love it, but there is still a ways to go until people understand the greatness achieved when a swimming world record is broken. I find it offensive to see it ranked lower than a home run or a 3 point shot for the win….
Where is the list?
4th is certainly Not the spot that a world record deserves esp. in the 1500…. The fact of the matter is that sport center is a for profit enterprise and calculates the popularity of each item from a financial perspective. It is up to us the “united swim fans of America” to make sure that the US mainstream media like Sports Center know how many of us there are and the potential financial impact our numbers represent. The more popular swimming, the more we share the fantastic sport of swimming the more the main stream media will embrace and cover our sport. Thanks to all the “tweating” swim fans please keep up the efforts
Kudos to Swimswam and the others for launching the campaign to even get Katie noticed. Without it, she wouldn’t have even made the list!
Agreed. Braden and all of the contributors at SwimSwam have provided an awesome interactive venue for swim fans to comment and enjoy the sport. Yesterday’s 1500 race was one for the ages and unfortunately, only those actively watching the sport in ‘our swimming bubble’ can truly appreciate it. As other comments suggest, hopefully, one day more people in the States will appreciate the sport but for now I’m just thankful that we have an outlet like SwimSwam that increases the experience for us. Thanks again SwimSwam!