RIO DE JANEIRO -- The tallest task of Leah Smith's soaring swimming career will the continue to be the same one she stared down Sunday night in claiming her first Olympic medal, a bronze in the 400-meter freestyle.
No, not the pressure of 12,000 screaming fans inside the Aquatic Stadium and a global audience of billions.
No, not coming from behind, as she needed to do to overtake Hungary's Boglarka Kapas for a place on the podium.
Something that should be a whole lot simpler.
"I just need to be myself," Smith was telling me, right out of the pool and still soaking wet. "That's got to be my main objective."
And what did that mean?
"This morning, I was a little upset with my race," she replied, referring to the preliminary heat in which she also needed to claw back but with far less fluidity in qualifying with the third-best time. "I felt like I swam other people's races too much. Sometimes, if you pay attention to how other people are doing in the race, you start to swim their race. Tonight, I didn't want to be uncomfortable if someone was ahead of me."
Someone ahead of her.
Yeah, that might be a worthwhile adjustment to make.
See, Smith is an overwhelming success. She's the pride of Mt. Lebanon at age 20, a champion and role model at Oakland Catholic, an NCAA record-holder at the University of Virginia. To take this medal, she twice had to pass opponents late, the ultimate sign that she's got that extra gear swimming coaches covet. Throw in there, too, that her bloodlines trace to great-uncle Billy Conn, the legendary fighter, and great-grandfather Jimmy Smith, a World Series champion with the Reds. Her immediate family, for that matter, has been all about sports, including father Dan's prowess as a pole vaulter at Virginia.
Show me a pole vaulter who can avoid becoming shish kebab, and I'll show you an athlete capable of anything.
So with all that going for her, Smith can achieve anything. The ceiling can't be seen, and this medal will surely be only her first until ... oh, Wednesday, when she and the U.S. team are favored for gold in the 4x200 free relay, or Thursday, when she swims the 800 free.
Leah Smith wins Olympic bronze in the 400-meter freestyle swim. - GETTYWell ...
“For me, it brought me back to kind of what I was like way, way, way back in the day,” Phelps said after he won his own Olympic-standard 19th gold in the 4x100 relay a few minutes later. “Every time she gets in the water, it’s like a world record. She's improving so much, and I think she's just trying to push that barrier.”
No hype there. Get this: Ledecky has now set a world record 12 times -- 12 times! -- since winning gold in London before she was old enough to drive. Even now, she still hasn't begun college.
Look, it's outrageously premature to compare Phelps to anyone, but you get the picture: That's who Smith is chasing. That's her challenge. But again, not directly. Because, as she so adroitly put it, "The best swimmer I can be is the best swimmer I can be."
It's the healthiest of approaches, as sports history has powerfully illustrated.
Muhammad Ali had a Joe Frazier.
Babe Ruth had a Lou Gehrig.
Mario Lemieux had a Jaromir Jagr, right there under his own igloo.
You could do this sort of thing all day. For every Batman, there's a contemporary Robin.
And yeah, Phelps has had his Ryan Lochte, his "fellow old dude" on this U.S. team. Lochte isn't in the same solar system from the public standpoint, but in and around the pool, he's pushed and prodded Phelps for more than a decade now, never silently settling for second.
That's how it tends to go in these circumstances. There's that freakish performer who's so far above the pack that the next in line would be otherwise be considered a legit greatest of that era without hesitation. But there's almost always someone hard on the heels, if not in distance then in determination.
Smith isn't there yet. Her times aren't pushing Ledecky. Her consistency needs to improve. Her breakthrough moment, the one that pulls her away from her own pack, still needs to happen.
But let the record show that Lochte now has six golds of his own. And Frazier became a heavyweight champ by beating 'The Greatest.' And Gehrig gave America one of its most memorable moments of any kind on a field of competition. And Jagr ... heck, he might never stop showing us his own brand of greatness.
Smith doesn't need to be anyone's Leah Jr. Stuff happens, for better and worse. Tides turn.
For all the support Smith has gotten -- her parents and brothers and sisters were all here, and she was tweeted about watch parties back in the South Hills and on the Virginia campus -- the best bit of advice she received was one she told me she got right before this race from Ledecky's coach, Bruce Gemmell.
"He said, 'Just be yourself. Just funnel that energy that you and Katie both have, and make it into something special,' " Smith recalled with a broad smile. "I think we did that."
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