Katie Ledecky of the United States destroyed the field in the 800 meter freestyle on Friday and broke the world record to complete a rare Olympic swimming feat.
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By the time Ledecky reached for the wall on her 16th lap Friday night, shattering her own world record by almost two seconds with a time of 8 minutes, 4.79 seconds, there wasn’t another swimmer close enough to appear in a photo of the finish.
Ledecky, the defending champion in the event that first put her on the global radar, recorded a winning time of 8:04.79, breaking her own record set in January by 1.89 seconds.
Trailing behind her, Jazz Carlin from Great Britain and Boglarka Kapas from Hungary finished second and third, in 8:16.17 and 8:16.37, respectively.
UVa athletes have won 25 overall Olympic medals across all sports, including 15 gold, 4 silver and 6 bronze medals.
Also, worth noting is that Katie just became the first Olympian in 48 years to make a clean sweep of the 200-meter, 400-meter and 800-meter freestyle races, joining former Olympian Debbie Meyer.
Katie Ledecky with her 400m freestyle gold medal in Rio.
DiRado’s upset denied Hosszu a fourth gold in Rio, and capped off a remarkable one-and-done Olympics for the American. Singapore’s Joseph Schooling set an Olympic record for the gold at 50.39.
“She’s doing times that women have never done before because she’s not afraid to think outside the box”, Phelps said.
Then she waited for the rest of the field finish.
Ervin reclaimed the mantle of fastest man in the water by winning the 50 freestyle gold medal 16 years after he first won it, and by the slimmest of margins.
She also won a silver medal in the 4 x 100-meter relay.
United States’ Carli Lloyd lies on the ground during a quarter-final match of the women’s Olympic football tournament between the United States and Sweden in Brasilia Friday Aug. 12, 2016.
She’s only 19, so who knows how low it might go in the future.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Katie Ledecky even upstaged Michael Phelps at the Olympics on Friday.
“Hopefully we’ll inspire people”, Ledecky said, “30 years down the road even when somebody’s breaking my records”. And Maya DiRado knocked off the Iron Lady in the 200 backstroke, pulling off a furious rally on the final lap to beat Katinka Hosszu. “I saw it right before I left for the session tonight so I’m just so proud to be a part of that history”.
‘I couldn’t do it without my family, ‘ she said.
Team USA added four more gold medals to their bulging tally, as they stayed seven clear of China on day 7.
SAND BLAST: American beach volleyball stars Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross advanced to the quarterfinals with a 21-10, 21-16 win in just 35 minutes over Italy’s Laura Giombini and Marta Menegatti.
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And two other Americans won gold, too. Not one to waste any time (obviously), she starts on September 9. Florent Manaudou of France claimed silver and American Nathan Adrian bronze.
