Katie Ledecky’s training included swimming with a glass of chocolate milk on her head

‘Hard work in the water also means hard work out of the water. Recovering with @chocolate_milk,’ tweets Katie Ledecky

A video of Katie Ledecky swimming with a glass of chocolate milk as part of her training for the Tokyo Olympics has reemerged on social media.

The footage shows the 24-year-old six time gold-medal winner swimming in the Stanford University pool with a glass of chocolate milk perfectly balanced on her head.

During her lap of the pool, Ledecky does not spill a drop of milk into the water in the clip, which has received nearly 36,000 likes and 4.2 million views. The Team USA swimmer explained a motivating factor for successfully reaching the other side without spilling any milk or getting any pool water; being able to enjoy the sweet treat.

“I think a lot of people see it, and they of course think that I’m trying not to drop the cup,” Ledecky told The Washington Post. “But I was also trying not to get any water in the cup because I wanted to drink it afterwards. I didn’t want to ruin the milk.”

Ledecky also gave some insight about how she managed to gracefully swim a whole lap with a cup brimming with chocolate milk; creating a nest with her hair and swim cap.

“I really wasn’t sure it would even work. I didn’t know if it’d sit on my head,” she told the Post.

Ledecky detailed why she did it; the iconic Got Milk team had gotten in touch with her and wanted her to play around to promote the calcium-rich drink.

She shared the video with the following caption, “Possibly one of the best swims of my career! (~open for debate~) What can you do without spilling a drop?! Check out the #gotmilkchallenge on TikTok. #gotmilk#ad.”

“The Got Milk team told me they were launching this campaign and asked if I’d be up for trying to something fun in the pool,” Ledecky told the Post. “They kind of left it up to me to see what I could do. I said, ‘Let me get in the pool and play around a little bit’.”

Judging by some of her recent tweets, Ledecky is still a fan of chocolate milk as a recovery aid from a long session in the pool.

“Hard work in the water also means hard work out of the water. Recovering with @chocolate_milk#Ad,” she tweeted on 25 June.

The impressive feat was filmed in 2020, back when the fate of the Olympics was up in the air due to the coronavirus pandemic. The virus caused the Games to be delayed by a year, and for a while, there were calls to cancel them completely due to rising Covid cases in Japan.

However, last week, they kicked off officially at a socially distanced Opening Ceremony. The small list of attendees included First Lady Jill Biden; the Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and his wife, Mariko Suga; and the Japanese Emperor Naruhito.

During her time in Tokyo, Ledecky has secured two medals; a silver in the 400-metre freestyle and gold in the 1500-metre freestyle.