9x Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky and 6x NBA champion Michael Jordan both stand at the zenith of American sporting excellence. During the recently concluded Paris Olympics, a clip of MJ playing peek-a-boo with a two-year-old Ledecky went viral following the latter’s heroics in swimming. Fans noted how the ace swimmer was bound to become a great athlete after receiving the Midas’ touch from one of the best athletes of all time.
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Meanwhile, a lot of people observed how Ledecky nonchalantly ate her popcorn as Jordan was trying to mess with her from behind. It was almost as if MJ was one of her uncles. Earlier this month, Ledecky revealed the context behind the viral video during an interview with Overtime.
The 27-year-old recalled that the incident took place during a Washington Wizards game. At the time, her uncle Jon Ledecky used to own the NHL’s Washington Capitals, because of which she had the access to VIP seats.
Meanwhile, MJ had an executive role with the Wizards at the time. So he also attended Wizards games.
Then she talked about her indifferent reaction when the NBA legend was trying to have her attention. MJ went as far as covering her mouth to prevent her from eating her popcorn. But even that wasn’t enough to catch her attention.
Ledecky said, “I was eating my popcorn, and Michael Jordan started playing peekaboo with me. I was totally unfazed, just kept eating my popcorn, and he started covering my mouth to try to prevent me from getting the popcorn in my mouth.”
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It wasn’t as if she wasn’t aware of who Jordan was. At the time, she was sitting with Zach Leonsis, who is the son of Ted Leonsis, the founder and CEO of Monumental Sports. Leonsis asked her if she knew who she was dealing with. Ledecky confidently told him that she knows who MJ is.
“I think Zach, at one point in the video, if you look very closely, says, ‘Do you know who that is?’ And I say, ‘Michael Jordan.’ So I was definitely aware of how great he was, who he was, but I was totally unfazed by it.”
Then the 14x Olympic medalist admitted that Jordan may have indeed blessed her with some of his gold dust of greatness. She acknowledged that being among top-notch athletes at a young age shaped her brilliant swimming journey.
“I like to think that he, you know, inspired me and passed on a little bit of his greatness. It definitely was, you know, really inspiring to be around some professional athletes from such a young age.”
At any rate, the adorable interaction between two-year-old Katie Ledecky and Michael Jordan was a satisfying experience for many fans. It helped many of them see the soft side of MJ.
