The American women finished first and second in the 1,500-meter freestyle, with Katie Ledecky winning her sixth gold medal since the 2012 London Games.
While Ledecky has been a fixture of the Olympics for almost a decade, Erica Sullivan, the silver medalist, is a first-time Olympian and the 1,500 is her only event in Tokyo. Her time of 15 minutes 41.41 seconds was four seconds behind Ledecky’s.
Sullivan has said that she visited her mother’s family in Japan often in her life, and that she is fluent in Japanese. Her mother’s family home is in Ofuna, about 30 miles from Tokyo.