Hey all, I tried something new this weekend: I opened up a chat in the Substack app so that we can talk about all the sports nobody else is watching.

I think the first weekend was a big success: I mentioned that I was watching the NCAA Beach Volleyball championship, and then Ben S. revealed in the chat that he was actually at the NCAA Beach Volleyball championship, answered all my questions about what it was like there, and dropping in pictures of Cal Poly’s team dog, Mr. Herc.1

Here are my goals for the chat:

1. I’m going to let you know when I’m watching some sports, especially something really cool that I think most people might not know is happening

2. you’re going to let me know when you’re watching some sports, especially wen it’s something really cool that you think most people might not know is happening

Right now the chat just for paid subscribers. I want to have some fun stuff for people who are paying but also want to make sure people can get most of my work for free, and this seems like a good balance.

Let me know if you’re having issues with the chat, or if you think I’m stupid, or if you think I’m smart. Anyway, onto the sports!

The GOAT goes faster

Katie Ledecky’s career has often felt like the distance swimming races she dominates. While shorter races have flashier, splashier finishes, Ledecky’s would bang out crisp splits in seemingly endless races while her opponents weakened and withered. And while some swimmers only compete in a single Olympiad, Ledecky has now won gold medals at four and is going for a fifth. Her dominance over 1500 meters and her greatness over the course of a decade could both be defined by her consistency over a remarkably long period of time.

Saturday, we got something we hadn’t gotten in years: A Katie Ledecky race with a stunning ending. 500 meters into her 800m swim, she was behind world record pace. But egged on by an enthusiastic Ft. Lauderdale crowd and an even more enthusiastic pool announcer (Rowdy Gaines, you’ve got company!) Ledecky actually got faster as the race went on, posting negative splits and bursting to the finish line to break her own world record with a stunning 8:04.12 in the 800m.

Ledecky cut a half-second off the record in the final lap alone, bursting home in 28.46 seconds. According to SwimSwam, her final 400 meters in this race would make her the 19th-best performer of all time in the 400m. And that’s against racers who didn’t have to swim 400 meters first!

Despite all her career accomplishments, Ledecky was visibly emotional after winning, and could not stop smiling in her post-race interview.

I know what you’re thinking: so what, Katie Ledecky has a million records and a billion medals! Saying she set a world record is like saying “Patrick Mahomes threw a touchdown” or “Draymond Green scorpion kicked an opponent in the duodenum.” Yeah, that’s kinda their whole deal.

But it had seemed like Ledecky’s record-setting days were over. This was her first world record in SEVEN YEARS. That’s longer than the entire competitive careers of most elite swimmers!

The record Ledecky broke Saturday was set at the Rio Olympics. I was at that race. I took pictures of Katie swimming on an iPhone 5. Substack hadn’t been invented yet.

(Ledecky setting the world record in 2016. There were seven other swimmers in the race, you just can’t see them. Photo credit: Me.)

Sure, Katie won gold at the Paris Olympics last year. Two golds, actually! But although she was still better than the rest of the world, she was not as great as she used to be. Her gold medal times in the 800m and the 1500m, were well off her personal bests. She won her first career bronze medal in the 400m. (Gotta think that thing’s going at the bottom of her massive suitcase filled with medals.) It felt like we were looking at the tail end of the GOAT.

Ledecky’s results this weekend demolish that totally understandable theory. In addition to her world record, Ledecky swam her second-fastest 400m ever and her second-fastest 1500m ever. Like… all things considered, it might have been her most impressive meet ever. That’s nuts! She’s already the most decorated female swimmer ever, heading towards her fifth Olympics, having spent more than half her life competing at the elite level… and she might be better than ever.

Perhaps Ledecky’s career arc will be exactly like the race she swam Saturday: after lap after lap of consistent brilliance leaving her way ahead of the field, and somehow, she’s speeding up towards the end. Except unlike the 800 and the 1500, we don’t actually know when this race is going to end.

The Frogs go swimming

One of the most underrated NCAA championships had its best ending ever: The NCAA beach volleyball championship came down to the final set of the final pair between two schools trying to win their first championship ever, leading to a heroic clutch comeback from the best pairing in the sport.

This was the ninth NCAA Beach volleyball championship. The first eight were won by USC, USC, UCLA, UCLA, UCLA, USC, USC, USC, and USC. Noticing a trend? Tat’s right, schools that start with the letter “U!” But this year, Loyola Marymount took down both the Trojans and the Bruins in the quarters and semis of this year’s tournament, shifting the balance of power even closer to the beach in LA.

That put LMU on the verge of the school’s first national championship ever in any NCAA sport. All they had to do was defeat TCU, a school from entirely beachless Ft. Worth, Texas. The Lions and Horned Frogs split the first four pairings 2-2, setting up a decisive match between the top pairs from each school. LMU’s team of Michelle Shaffer and Anna Pelloia won the first set, leaving the Lions 21 points from a championship.

But their opponents, Daniela Alvarez and Tania Moreno, are one of the best pairings in the sport—not just college beach volleyball, but the world. They were named NCAA pair of the year after going 34-1 in 2023, taking a year off in 2024 to qualify and prepare for the Olympics, representing Spain2 and finishing fifth.3

Alvarez and Moreno dominated the final two sets, the HYPNOTOAD flags flew, and TCU became the first inland school to win a beach natty. Now if we could just get an Arizona State hockey title…

2 Fast 2 Furious

Speed climbing is probably the quickest event in international sports, and Sam Watson is hell-bent on making it even quicker.

The 19-year old Texan broke his own world record in the semifinals of a World Cup event in Bali this weekend, then came back in the final shortly afterwards and re-broke that record, climbing the wall in 4.64 seconds—probably about as long as it took you to read this paragraph, if not less.

@tntsportsWhat the heck!? 😳 Sam Watson SMASHES the men’s speed record in Bali with a time of 4.64 seconds 😱 #climbing #worldrecord

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Watson had an ideal record-breaking setup in the final, as his opponent false-started. Like a QB who knew he just got the opponent to jump, he had a free play to attack the wall as aggressively as possible.

Believe it or not, this isn’t even the first time Watson has broke his own world record twice in one day—he pulled the same thing last April in an event in China. All in all, he’s reset the record six times in 13 months, shaving about a quarter-second off the mark in a race that’s less than 5 seconds long. You might remember Watson setting the world record in the Paris Olympics… or you might not, because he did it in the bronze medal race after an unfortunate split-second slip in the semifinal.4

Part of me expects Watson to keep breaking and rebreaking the record, since he’s only 19 and is clearly dedicated to finding ways to shave off hundredths of seconds. But watching him scramble up the wall, I can’t imagine there are that many hundredths of seconds to cut! Like, that really seems about as fast as a human can do the thing he’s doing!

Some Sports You Won’t Miss

IIHF Men’s Ice Hockey World Championship: I’m always a little bit baffled by the fact that the international hockey championship takes place during the NHL Playoffs, meaning the sport’s best players often aren’t included. The key, I think, is to get all your country’s best players are on teams which don’t qualify for the NHL postseason. (Great news for Canada—Sidney Crosby is in.) The tournament is in Sweden, and all Team USA games and the playoffs will be on “the NHL Network,” which I do not get, tough break. 👎👎👎

World Athletics Relays: AKA Oops! All Batons! Surprisingly, Team USA tends to do well at this relays-only event despite a comically long history of illegal handoffs and dropped batons at the Olympics. This year’s event is in China, so it’s gonna be very early here in the States—7 a.m. Saturday and Sunday on Peacock 🦚🦚🦚

PVF Championship: Remember how I said there were two pro volleyball startups? The second one is having its championship this weekend in Las Vegas. Unlike the LOVB, the Pro Volleyball Federation has only invited the top four teams in the league to its playoff: the Omaha Supernovas, Atlanta Vibe, Orlando Valkyries (sorry about losing that SEO battle to the WNBA, guys) and Indy Ignite. Semis are Friday night, championship is Sunday at 4 p.m., all three games broadcast on CBS Sports Network. 👁️👁️👁️

La Vuelta Feminina: You think I'm gonna pass up the opportunity to put people biking through rural Spain on my TV all week? You don't know me. This is on morning this week on Peacock, finishing on Saturday. 🦚 🦚🦚

NCAA Women’s Water Polo national championship: Here’s a stunner: Stanford has won zero of the 22 NCAA championships in the 2024-25 athletic season so far. They’re the #1 seeds in water polo after a 22-1 regular season, but did lose to USC earlier this year. Games Wednesday to Sunday, mostly streaming on NCAA.com, but the championship will be Sunday at noon ET on ESPNU and ESPN+. 🐭🐭🐭