With one more finals session remaining, Ledecky should finish as the most decorated female swimmer of these Olympics with four golds – three individual – and a silver.
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The 19-year-old from the United States became the first woman since 1968 to do an Olympic cleansweep of the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle titles to win her fourth gold medal of the Rio Games.
The 25-year-old dug deep in the last 100m of the 800m final to claim her second silver of the Games in a time of 8:16:17 ahead of Hungarian Boglarka Kapas.
Ledecky’s swim helped restore order to the Rio pool after Michael Phelps was denied a fourth consecutive gold medal in the 100-meter butterfly by Singapore’s Joseph Schooling.
Astonishingly, all three touched out in 51.14 seconds, behind Schooling’s Olympic record 50.39 in the second dead-heat in a final in two days.
Katie Ledecky has drawn parallels to Michael Phelps in his pomp with the manner in which she has dominated in the water.
Adam Peaty’s bid for a second Olympic gold of the Rio Games remains on course after Great Britain qualified fastest for the 4x100m medley relay final. Hosszu settled for silver in 2:06.05, while Canada’s Hilary Caldwell took the bronze in 2:07.54.
“She said I’m not going to sleep until I give you a hug”, Manuel said.
The race was the final individual event for Phelps in Rio, although he still has a chance to close out his Olympic career with a 23rd gold medal if the USA team wins the 4×100-meters relay. She later won the event at the 2013 and 2015 World Championships, said NBC.
“I’m happy”, Phelps said. For good measure, she earned silver anchoring the 4×100 free relay, showing the sort of speed that has only recently become part of her repertoire but bodes well for her branching out even more in the future.
Ledecky was barely breathing hard. Anthony Ervin swam the length of the pool in 21.40 seconds, edging Florent Manaudou of France by 1/100th of a second, and fellow American Nathan Adrian by 9/100ths of a second.
LEWIS: Ledecky won the same race at the London Olympics four years ago at the age of 15. Then, Ervin walked away from swimming, skipping the next two Olympics while he embarked on a journey to find his goal in life. Now, improbably, he’s back on the top of the podium again.
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She’s already got a job lined up in Atlanta after the Olympics and made it clear she would be retiring no matter the results. “I just wanted to enjoy it all and put my very best swim out there”. In 2008, he needed a miraculous lunge to the wall to beat Serbia’s Milorad Cavic by.01 of a second, Phelps’ closest call during his record-setting run to eight gold medals at the Beijing Games.
