With Three Graduates Headed to Paris Olympics, Bethesda School at Stone Ridge Ready to Celebrate

With three graduates heading to Paris next month to swim for the U.S. Olympic team, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda is preparing to celebrate its star athletes.

The private Catholic school announced this week that it plans to hold a “Red, White and Blue Olympic Rally” on July 25, the day before the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, on its campus in support of Katie Ledecky, Phoebe Bacon and Erin Gemmell.

Head of School Catherine Ronan Karrels and head swimming and diving coach Bob Walker were part of a Bethesda contingent that was on hand last week as the three graduates earned spots on the team at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials in Indianapolis. Ledecky, 27, graduated in 2015, while Bacon, 21, followed in 2020 and Gemmell, 19, in 2023.

Karrels, a 1986 Stone Ridge graduate, said she watched Ledecky and Gemmell compete in the 200-yard freestyle final and made the relay team together. “And when Phoebe joined the team, seconds after finishing her swim, I got a text from Katie with a ‘Woooooohooo!!! “, she said.

“I know they’ll be wearing their Stone Ridge blue and gold under their Team USA red, white and blue,” adds Walker, who coached all three swimmers at Stone Ridge.

The Summer Games will mark the fourth Olympics for Ledecky, a superstar who burst onto the world stage after winning a gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle at the 2012 London Games when she was just 15.

“I’m extremely excited to be heading to Paris with Erin and Katie,” says Bacon of Chevy Chase. “I think it’s just such a special thing to have three of us from the same region and the same high school, all on one Olympic team, competing against each other and cheering each other on. mutually – it’s definitely kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

A total of 20 women have been named to the 2024 U.S. Women’s Olympic Swimming Team. With Stone Ridge alumni earning three of those spots, the Stone Ridge Gators make up 15% of the team.

“It’s wonderful to have three young women from our community make the U.S. women’s Olympic swim team,” said Ledecky’s mother, Mary Gen Ledecky of Bethesda. “I’ve watched all three grow up in sports, but I’ve also watched them become smart, wonderful women who care about their studies, their community and doing good in the world. I will be cheering for all of them, as well as TEAM USA, once the games start.

The three swimmers have known each other for a long time. Ledecky and Gemmell met 12 years ago when Gemmell’s father, Bruce Gemmell, was coaching Ledecky at the Nation’s Capital Swim Club in Bethesda. In awe of the older swimmer, Gemmell says she dressed up as Ledecky for Halloween in 2013 at age 8, borrowing a Ledecky swim cap through her father’s connections.

Ledecky and Bacon also attended Little Flower School, a private Catholic elementary school located at 5601 Massachusetts Ave. in Bethesda, at the same time. According to Ledecky and Bacon, when Bacon was in pre-kindergarten and Ledecky was in fourth grade at the school, they were referred to as “buddies.”

“(She) ended up on the Tokyo 2021 Olympic swim team with me, competing in the 200 backstroke,” Ledecky writes in her new memoir, Just Add Water: My Swimming Life. In the book published on June 11, the seven-time gold medalist recounts her prolific sporting career. “There must be, pardon the pun, something in the water at the DMV.”

When Ledecky wasn’t celebrating the achievements of her Stone Ridge friends, she lived up to expectations at tryouts by winning the 200, 400, 800 and 1,500 meter freestyle events, earning her spot on the list of the most decorated Olympic swimmers of all time.

Bacon, a fifth-year senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, finished second in the 200-yard backstroke to make his second straight Olympic team by 0.07 seconds. Gemmell, a sophomore at the University of Texas, finished fourth in the 200-meter freestyle, securing a spot on the 4×200 freestyle relay team alongside Ledecky.

This will be the first Olympics for Gemmell, who won a silver medal in the 4×200 freestyle relay as part of the 2023 World Championships team. His brother Andrew competed at the 2012 Olympics in London.

“I am honored to be going to Paris, and I am especially excited to be going with Katie and Phoebe,” Gemmell said. “Competing in the Olympics was one of my biggest dreams, and I am amazed to be doing it with two other people from Stone Ridge, especially considering the relatively small size of the school.”

Stone Ridge’s pep rally, tentatively scheduled for 4:30 to 6 p.m., will be held on its campus at 9101 Rockville Pike. All community members and Stone Ridge Gator fans are invited to attend and are asked to RSVP, the school said in a statement.

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