If the United States women had not captured the landmark medal, Michael Phelps and the men’s 4×100 medley relay squad would have done so, the quartet winning gold in the very next event in the pool.
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Also the U.S. women’s 4×100-meter medley relay team of Kathleen Baker, Lilly King, Dana Vollmer and Simone Manuel is being recognized by the U.S. Olympic Committee as delivering the nation’s 1,000th gold medal in Summer Olympics history, although there are questions and disputes over past medals that shade the accomplishment a bit.
“It’s really special that I could do it with the relay is incredible, just sharing it with three other women is icing on top of the cake”, said Manuel. The Jamaican won with an impressive final time of 10.71 seconds.
Farah tumbled in the 10th lap but he brilliantly recovered before storming to the stunning victory. “I thought about all my hard work and that it could all be gone in a minute”.
And there was one final hurrah in the pool as the men’s medley relay team took silver.
They had already set world records in qualifying and their semifinal. American Tori Bowie won silver in the women’s 100m, behind Jamaican gold medalist Elaine Thompson.
Olympic winners bite their medals as symbolism and to give photographers a pose to capture besides just smiles.
Justin Gatlin of the United States, considered Bolt’s main rival for the gold medal, recorded the fastest time of the heats with 10.01 seconds. There is only one last swimming event in the last week of the Olympics – marathon swimming.
The two highest gold-medal totals in an individual Olympics for US came in years the country hosted – 1904 in St. Louis (76) and 1984 in Los Angeles (83).
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China was solidly in second place with 41 medals, then Great Britain at 30.
