Phelps took first Tuesday night in the 200 meter butterfly and later teamed with Lochte as half of the gold medal winning 4×200 meter freestyle relay team. Conor Dwyer, Townley Haas and Ryan Lochte made sure of that, handing off a commanding lead to the most decorated athlete in Olympic history.
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Phelps, who came out of retirement to compete at Rio 2016 – which is his fifth and final Olympic Games – avenged his defeat by Chad le Close at London 2012 by winning the 200m butterfly. He held off Japan’s Masato Sakai by four-hundredths of a second, with Hungary’s Tamas Kenderesi taking the bronze.
He also won gold on Tuesday night alongside Michael Phelps in the 4x200m freestyle relay.
Ledecky scooped her second gold of the Games after holding off a fearless charge from Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom in the women’s 200m freestyle.
Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden took the silver medal while Emma McKeon of Australia won bronze.
At 31, Phelps is the oldest individual gold medalist in Olympic swimming history, according to ESPN Stats & Info. NBC will use “total audience delivery” to convince advertisers that they’re reaching more viewers than the traditional Nielsen figures indicate. Phelps earned his 21st Olympic gold in the race. Not only that, Phelps could’ve swam this race in a football helmet and sunglasses and probably come out gold. Simone Biles and the American women’s gymnastics team are on the mat and the Brazilian women’s soccer team will try to pick up the slack for the celebrated men, who have underwhelmed early in the Olympics.
“Coming into Rio I didn’t have any Olympic medals so I would have been okay with any colour”, she said.
Team USA has won a medal in every 800 free relay since the event’s Olympic debut in 1908 (excluding 1980 when the US boycotted the Games). For reference, Canada’s Brent Hayden won the bronze medal at the London Olympics with a time of 47.80 seconds.
Am I the only one curious to know what the girl standing behind Ledecky is up to these days? They won the women’s 10-meter synchronized platform title to make China 3-for-3 in the competition so far. Defending Olympic champion Nathan Adrian had a tougher time in the 100-meter freestyle, grabbing the 16th and final spot for Tuesday night’s semifinals.
“Once I was ahead I was not going to let it out of my hands”, Ledecky said.
“That event is kind of like my bread and butter”, Phelps said.
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Sydney Pickrem, born in Dunedin, still living in Florida, another of the teenagers on the Canadian swim team, wound up an impressive sixth in the final of the women’s 200 metre individual medley. “I didn’t say anything to anyone else, but there wasn’t a shot in hell I was losing it”.
