Then, after her coach moved to the West Coast, Ledecky connected with Bruce Gemmell and never missed a beat.
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Noting that this was her last race in Rio, Ledecky added, “The Olympics is the pinnacle of our sport and I have to wait four more years to have that moment again so I wanted the last one to be special”.
Ledecky’s world records in the 400-, 800-, and 1,500-meter distances are incredibly impressive on their own.
Katie Ledecky decimated her own world record for the women’s 800-meter freestyle at the Rio Olympics on Friday, touching the final wall with no other competitors in sight. The Los Angeles Times says Ledecky “now holds the 13 fastest times ever in the event”.
Defending Olympic champion Ennis-Hill will be looking to repeat her spectacular performance at the last Games as the heptathletes begin the day with the 100m hurdles.
“I hit all my goals right on the nose this week”, she said.
“I have been working with a sports psychologist on that side of things as well and not just the physical side”.
LEWIS: Ledecky won the same race at the London Olympics four years ago at the age of 15.
“I’m just so proud of my teammates and what we’ve all accomplished this last week”. “It’s just insane”, Schooling said.
Phelps settled for silver along with two longtime rivals, Chad le Clos of South Africa and Laszlo Cseh of Hungary.
Jazz Karlin finally touched in 8:16.17 to claim the silver, just ahead of Hungary’s Boglarka Kapas grabbing the bronze in 8:16.37.
Around 23 seconds after Ledecky touched the divider, the remainder of the eight finalists chugged to the end of the tiring race. I was a little kid with a dream, and it turned into a couple of medals, a pretty good couple of years of swimming.
The first day of track and field yielded a couple firsts for the United States: Michelle Carter is not only the first female American to take gold in the shot put, but she and her father Michael (who won silver in 1984 before embarking on an National Football League career) are the first-ever father-daughter team to capture individual-event track and field medals.
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.
“I’m happy”, Phelps said. “It’s been a really long week and I knew it was going to be a tough one”. Hungary’s “Iron Lady” Katinka Hosszu finished with three individual golds, as well, plus a silver after an upset in the 200 backstroke Friday.
Carlin won the fifth Welsh silver of the 2016 Games in the pool just hours after cyclist Owain Doull won Wales’ first gold in Rio in the team pursuit.
Anthony Ervin, the oldest US man to swim an individual event in the Olympics since 1904, edged France’s Florent Manaudou at the finish, 21.40 seconds to 21.41.
American swimmers won gold and bronze in the 50-meter freestyle sprint.
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Even with a hugely disappointing performance by Franklin, who didn’t even make it to the final of her two individual events, the Americans still blew everyone away.
