7/31/2021 The Backyard Pool That Made Katie Ledecky’s Olympics Possible - WSJ

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The Backyard Pool That Made Katie Ledecky’s

Olympics Possible
When the pandemic closed pools in March 2020, Atherton, Calif., native Tod Spieker opened his pool
to Katie Ledecky to let her keep chasing her Olympic dream

By
Laine Higgins
July 31, 2021 1:00 pm ET

TOKYO—At 73 years old, a former swimmer named Tod Spieker is decades removed from
the teens and twentysomethings representing Team USA in Tokyo. But in many ways, he’s
never been closer.

That’s because Katie Ledecky, the star of the American women’s team who will come
home from Tokyo with two gold and two silver medals, spent the most stressful and
uncertain period of her Olympics preparation during the spring of 2020 swimming laps in
his backyard.

“In a very difficult time with this pandemic, I felt very good about having them continue to
chase their dream,” said Spieker.

A real-estate developer based in the Bay Area, Spieker was familiar with Ledecky because
he was an avid fan of NCAA swimming, particularly in the Pac-12 Conference. He was an
All-American in the 200-yard backstroke for UCLA in the late 1960s and the natatorium at
the university bears his name thanks to his donations. Ledecky competed for Stanford for
two seasons before turning pro in 2018.

He never imagined his life would intertwine with Ledecky’s outside of the eight nights
every four years, or in this case five, when he watched swimming in the Olympics. Then
came the coronavirus pandemic, upending daily routines, sending Californians into
lockdown and shuttering pools across the country.

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7/31/2021 The Backyard Pool That Made Katie Ledecky’s Olympics Possible - WSJ

Delaney, 7, spent most of the spring watching Olympic gold medalists Simone Manuel (left) and
Katie Ledecky train in her grandfather’s backyard pool.
PHOTO: LINDY HOPKIN

Spieker’s life was hardly disrupted at first—he was already working remotely from his
second home in Palm Desert, Calif., where he and his wife Cathy had planned to stay until
May. He offered his empty home in Atherton, Calif., to his daughter Lindy Hopman, who
lives in the area and was juggling virtual elementary school for her three children: Ben,
Delaney and Beau.

Meanwhile, Ledecky was scrambling to find a place to train. She bounced from the aquatic
center at rival Cal to the backyard of Stanford booster Jeff Morris to a country club in
Menlo Park. When all of those didn’t work out for various reasons, Ledecky considered
moving in with her grandmother in North Dakota, where the local recreational pool is
named for her grandfather.

That’s when Spieker and Ledecky’s lives became irreversibly intertwined. In late March,
Spieker got a call from Ted Knapp, the former men’s swim coach at Stanford. Knapp
mentioned that a pair of Cardinal swimmers were looking for a place to train on the down
low and asked if it would be OK if their coach, Greg Meehan, gave Spieker a call. The
swimmers were none other than Ledecky and teammate Simone Manuel.

“After conferring with my wife, she would not take no for an answer,” said Spieker. “These
ladies were going to train”

Spieker wasn’t sure if he would ever see them in action because he was in Palm Desert.
Meehan told him that he would probably only need to borrow pool space for two weeks.

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7/31/2021 The Backyard Pool That Made Katie Ledecky’s Olympics Possible - WSJ

He arranged for his housekeeper in Atherton to ferry the Stanford trio in and out through
the side gate and keep his grandkids from interacting with the swimmers. 

He ended up getting plenty of opportunities to let them in himself: Ledecky, Manuel and
Meehan stayed for three months.

After qualifying for her third Olympic team in June, Katie Ledecky stopped by the Spieker’s house
with T-shirts for the children to wear while she raced in Tokyo.
PHOTO: LINDY HOPKIN

At one point, said Ledecky, the Spieker family were the only humans she saw outside of
her teammate and coach. The kids scooted by on their bikes and cheered on the women
when they pushed off the walls for race-pace repeats.

“We’d almost start laughing,” said Ledecky. “Hearing those cheers of those little kids in
my head, because it was just such a hard time, that was so uplifting and helpful to have.”

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7/31/2021 The Backyard Pool That Made Katie Ledecky’s Olympics Possible - WSJ

Spieker opted to let the swimmers train in peace, getting in his 2,000 yards in the
mornings before the Stanford crew arrived. But with one of the greatest freestylers of all
time lapping outside his kitchen window he sometimes couldn’t resist taking a peek.

“Every once in a while I have a stopwatch and I timed some of the stuff,” he admitted. “It
was exciting to see. One time at the end of the workout she went 4:45 in a 500 [yard
freestyle].”

The Stanford women returned to Palo Alto in mid-June when the university reopened its
facilities. Ledecky sent the Spiekers updates on her training. The children recorded video
messages to wish her luck before the few meets she was available to attend. She stopped
by after U.S. Olympic Swim Trials in June to drop off “Ledecky” T-shirts for the children
and “a ton of candy,” said Hopkin.

“They’ve been kind of like family to me and really a big part of my swimming career now,”
said Ledecky on Saturday. She saw more of the Spiekers during the 16 months between
when the Tokyo Olympics were postponed and the Opening Ceremony last week than her
own family, who gathered for the first time in June at Trials since December 2019.

The Spieker grandchildren recorded a video of them cheering “Go Katie!” to send to the
swimmer before her first race in Tokyo, the 400-meter freestyle.

“They had me on it and I couldn’t get the words out. I broke down. It’s been so emotional,”
said Spieker. He was shocked to find a reply in his inbox hours later at 4:31 p.m. Pacific
Time (8:31 a.m. in Japan), less than two hours before Ledecky would take silver behind
Australia’s Ariarne Titmus.

“She’s got her own race to worry about and not correspond to some stinking emails!” said
Spieker on Saturday. “She is just such a great cut of cloth.”

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Katie Ledecky stayed in touch with the Spieker family after her three-month “training trip” ended.
PHOTO: LINDY HOPKIN

Ledecky will leave these games with another silver medal in the 4×200 freestyle relay and
two more individual golds in her signature events, the 800 and 1,500 freestyle, and the
support of the Spiekers an ocean away.

“They’ve been texting me and sending me pictures and videos of them watching the races
and cheering me on,” said Ledecky on Saturday. “They’re a big part of helping me get
here.”

Spieker said he was glad to be even a footnote in her Olympic journey. He said, “One of the
best, few good happenings last year was letting these ladies swim.”

Write to Laine Higgins at laine.higgins@wsj.com

Copyright © 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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