Time to make room for gold No. 19.
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Ledecky still has several races to come at these Games, with the opportunity to earn up to three more medals: the 200m freestyle, 800m freestyle and 4x200m freestyle relay.
“On the block I thought my heart was going to explode, I was so hyped, so excited”, said Phelps, competing in his fifth Olympics.
“It was insane – it’s unbelievable and I probably won’t be able to sleep tonight”. “I just wanted to hammer it, hit the touch and give them a bigger lead”.
Little Boomer won’t remember what his daddy did this night. In the third place, is Australia that bagged three golds and three silver medals.
Several of America’s swimming stars will be competing for gold on Tuesday night.
In other heats, newly crowned 400m individual medley champion Katinka Hosszu of Hungary set an Olympic record as she dominated the 200m IM prelims with a best time of 2:07.45.
The result was totally expected.
Congratulations, Katie! We can’t wait to see you win more gold medals in Rio!
The only drama was whether she’d take the world record even lower.
Her powerful stroke quickly made that a moot point, too.
Chinese weightlifter Long Qingquan broke the 56kg world record on the way to defeating defending Olympic champion Om Yun Chol of North Korea. Her nearest competitor, Great Britain’s Jazz Carlin, earned the silver medal nearly five seconds behind Ledecky.
The Japanese men topped Russian Federation in the team finals to take gold on Monday.
“I’m pumped, I was so close to breaking it [this morning]”.
“It’s been awesome coming back here and just kind of accepting the expectations I have now, and knowing that’s just to do my best”, Franklin said.
“It’s so hard knowing all the work you put in everyday and then to get here and be so far behind where you feel like you can be”, she said, her eyes tearing up.
Another big favourite was Sarah Sjostrom in the 100m butterfly and she duly delivered, taking gold in a world record time of 55.48 seconds ahead of 16-year-old Canadian Penny Oleksiak and United States defending Olympic champion Dana Volmer. But her time in the 200 free is done.
It was a night of world records in Rio. For Franklin, it was the first chance to swim after sitting out the first two days.
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Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, now has 19 golds, two silvers and two bronzes.
