It wasn’t even close.

With a record-setting performance in the 1,500-meter freestyle on Wednesday, Katie Ledecky captured her first gold medal of the 2024 Summer Olympics and tied Jenny Thompson with eight career gold medals, most ever by an American woman in any Olympic sport.

It was Ledecky’s 12th career Olympic medal, also tying Thompson, Natalie Coughlin and Dara Torres for most career medals by any American woman.

“I’m just so honored to represent our country,” Ledecky said on the NBC broadcast afterward. “Those women who have set the standard for so many years have inspired me. They inspired me when I first started swimming. Thank you to them and to everyone who has supported me all these years.”

Ledecky was in front from start to finish, lapping all of her opponents and finishing 10 seconds ahead of France’s Anastasiia Kirpichnikova, who took silver.

Ledecky’s time of 15:30.02 broke her own Olympic record by five seconds. In the 1,500-meter freestyle, also known as “the mile,” Ledecky owns the 20 fastest times ever recorded and hasn’t lost a race in 14 years.

“I’m proud of the time,” she said on NBC. “I really wanted to swim a time I could feel really proud of and be happy with.”

Thompson, who swam at Stanford in the ‘90s, and Coughlin, a Cal standout in the early 2000s, were both in attendance for the race.

“I can’t wait until she joins the 12-medal club,” Coughlin said on the broadcast.

“I’m just in awe of being here and watching Katie swim,” Thompson said. “She’s at a level far above me in my mind. It’s a dream to see her swim the mile here and be here for her.”

Ledecky is the favorite to win another gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle, which begins on Friday. She’s won the last three gold medals in that event.

A ninth gold medal would tie her with Larisa Latynina of the U.S.S.R. for the most gold medals ever won by a woman at the Olympics.

Ledecky also won a bronze medal in the 400-meter freestyle last week.

During her race on Wednesday, NBC charted her career as a swimmer and calculated that she has swam more than 23,000 miles, nearly the circumference of the earth.

The 27-year-old has also talked about competing at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Huske tops Olympic leaderboard >> She was the first American to win an individual gold medal at the Paris Olympics, and now Torri Huske is tied for the lead in overall medals.

Huske, a junior at Stanford who is taking a gap year to focus on swimming, stunned the swimming world on Wednesday when she picked up a silver medal in the 100-meter freestyle.

It was her third medal of these Games, making her the first athlete at the 2024 Olympics to capture three medals. She also has a gold in the 100-meter butterfly and a silver with the 4x100-meter freestyle relay team. French swimmer Leon Marchand has since tied Huske with three medals each.

Wednesday’s race featured two of the best 100-meter freestyle swimmers ever, with Huske up against a field that included world record holder Sarah Sjöström of Sweden and Hong Kong’s Siobhan Bernadette Haughey, who owns the third-fastest time ever recorded in the race.

But it was Huske who held the lead for 90 meters. She had a great jump and an even better turn as she surged ahead into the final quarter of the race, but her pace slowed in the final 20 meters and Sjöström turned on the jets.

Sjöström caught her at the finish line, with her outstretched hand touching the wall a fraction of a second before Huske’s, finishing at 52.16 in front of Huske’s 52.29. Haughey finished at 52.33 for the bronze.

For Huske to come so close to beating her was particularly impressive given she was swimming in the outside lane, which makes it more difficult to avoid waves that bounce off the side walls and slow swimmers down.

Sjöström, 30, hadn’t won a gold medal since Rio in 2016.

“I did not think I could win,” she told the NBC broadcast afterward. “I’ve done many things in my career but I never surprised myself the way I did here.”

She said she hadn’t raced in the 100-meter freestyle in several years until she began training for it a few weeks ago.

After the race, she looked up at the board to see the results and looked shocked. She started slapping the water in disbelief.

“I came here for 50-meter,” she said on the broadcast. “I did my work. I never thought a 30-year-old could win this. I thought you had to be 20 or something.”

Alexy stumbles in 100 >> It was an unfortunate time for Cal junior Jack Alexy to have an off day.

In the 100-meter freestyle heat on Tuesday, he set the fastest time of any of the 79 swimmers in the pool when he finished in 47.57.

But in the finals on Wednesday, Alexy got off to a slow start and never caught up. Finishing in seventh out of eight swimmers, he posted a 47.96 time that was far from the gold medal winner Chinese swimmer Pan Zhanle, who broke his own world record by finishing in 46.40, a full second ahead of the field.

Alexy, who is studying political economics at Cal, won a gold medal in the 4x100 freestyle relay last week. He has no other events in Paris.

Murphy ousted, Jones advances in 200 back >> Ryan Murphy lost his chance to make Olympic history.

Murphy, the Cal legend who is a four-time gold medalist, failed to qualify for the 200-meter backstroke final after finishing in 10th in the semifinals.

After winning a bronze in the 100-meter backstroke earlier this week, he had a chance to become the first man ever to medal in both the 100- and 200-meter backstroke in three consecutive Olympics.

Italy’s Thomas Ceccon, who beat Murphy to win the gold in the 100, also failed to qualify for the finals in the 200.

Instead, Murphy’s training partner at Cal, Bears freshman Keaton Jones, will be the one representing the United States in the finals.

Jones, who had mononucleosis in January and never expected to qualify for the Olympics this year, finished in sixth in the semifinals to earn himself a spot in the finals, which take place today at 11:30 a.m. PT.

He’ll be racing against Cal teammate Hugo Gonzalez, who is representing Spain. Gonzalez finished in eighth to earn the final spot.

Murphy, who has seven medals in his Olympic career, is expected to participate in the men’s 4x100-meter medley relay, with the final scheduled Aug. 4.

History made in table tennis competition >> Before bowing out to two of the world’s best table tennis players on Wednesday, a pair of Americans made history.

Lily Zhang, the 28-year-old who grew up in Palo Alto, became the third American woman ever to advance to the Round of 16 in table tennis.

“This is something I’ve wanted for so long; I’ve worked so hard for,” she said, according to USA Table Tennis.

In the Round of 16, Zhang faced Korea’s Shin Yu-bin, who is ranked No. 8 in the world.

Yu-bin made quick work of Zhang, defeating her 11-2, 11-8 and 11-4 in the first three games, though Zhang battled back to take several leads in Game 4. Failing to capitalize on two game points, Zhang eventually lost the fourth game 15-13, as she was swept out of the competition.

Still, it represented the best finish ever for Zhang, a four-time Olympian who said last month that she’s unsure if she’ll retire after the Summer Games.

She’ll get a second chance to compete when she takes part in women’s doubles, which begin Tuesday at 1 a.m. against Germany.

On the men’s side, Milpitas’ Kanak Jha also advanced to the Round of 16 with a win over Greece’s Panagiotis Gionis early Wednesday morning, marking the first time an American man ever made it that far in Olympic table tennis.

In the Round of 16, Jha was swept by Chinese star Fan Zhendong, ranked No. 4 in the world. Jha lost 11-4, 11-7, 12-10 and 11-7.

Women’s water polo team back on track >> The United States’ women’s water polo team continued their pursuit of a fourth straight gold medal with a 10-3 win over Italy on Wednesday.

Five current or former Stanford players scored in the game: Ryann Neushul, Jordan Raney, Jewel Roemer, Maggie Steffens and Jenna Flynn.

The Americans are 2-1 in group play with one game remaining against France on Friday at 9:30 a.m.