This may be even more admirable than her five Olympic gold medals. American competitive swimmer Katie Ledecky, 23, managed to swim the entire length of a pool with a full glass of chocolate milk perched on top of her head. There was no crying over spilled milk, because the glass stayed balanced on the Olympian’s head throughout the feat (with the help of a pair of fins and a snorkel).
Katie shared a video of her milk swim to Instagram and Twitter on Aug. 3, and joked that this may be “possibly one of the best swims of my career!” That’s a big statement coming from the person who has set world records in the women’s 400-, 800-, and 1,500-meter freestyle races. However, this swim wasn’t for a competition; rather, for TikTok! The classic “Got Milk?” campaign has now reached the social media platform in the form of the “#GotMilkChallenge,” encouraging people to try out a milk-related stunt similar to Katie’s.
“Got milk? Time to show us what else you got! Step 1: Pour a glass of milk. Step 2: Do something AMAZING–and don’t spill! Step 3: Sip to prove you still ‘got milk’,” the challenge states on TikTok. It’ll be difficult to pull off something even more “amazing” than the video above, judging by the amazed reactions of Katie’s fans online. “How do you keep your head so still?,” one fan asked, to which Katie jokingly replied, “I train for moments like this.”
Even Katie’s training partner, fellow Olympic gold medalist Simone Manuel, 24, commended Katie’s grace with the glass of milk. “Hoooowww nervous were you when you did this?!,” Simone asked in the comments section of Katie’s Instagram post, and Katie admitted, “I have never braced my core so hard. It’s a great drill!” Keeping still was key to nailing this challenge. In a behind-the-scenes pool video that Katie posted to her Instagram Story on Monday, she could be heard telling someone off-screen, “I was like freezing in my core so hard because I can’t move, I had to stay so still.”
Chocolate milk isn’t just an accessory for Katie’s head. The 15-time World Champion swimmer, in partnership with Built with Chocolate Milk, raved over the source of dairy in an EXCLUSIVE interview with HollywoodLife in Aug. 2019. “There’s been a lot of research behind chocolate milk as a great recovery drink for athletes. It Has the perfect ratio of carbs and proteins and it has natural electrolytes that really help you recover. I really believe in how it’s helped me prepare for the next workout, for the next race,” Katie told us at the time. And we can’t wait to see Katie’s next race at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo!