Phelps was sixth at the turn and Schooling – nearly exactly a decade younger than the 31-year-old American – wouldn’t let him pull off one of his patented comebacks on the return lap.
Advertisement
The 2012 London Games were supposed to be Phelps’ final Olympics as he retired from the sport. He rallied but did not have enough in his legs to catch 21-year-old Joseph Schooling of Singapore, who won in an Olympic-record time of 50.39 seconds.
“A three-way tie is pretty wild”, Phelps said.
“I try not to think about the history much”, Ledecky said. “It’s kind of special and a decent way to finish my last individual race”.
But Ledecky’s swim in Friday’s night’s 800-meter freestyle in Rio took it to another level.
And two other Americans won gold, too. The Friday match was a stunning loss for the US team, which has played in the final every year since women’s soccer became an Olympic sport 1996, winning gold four times. 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.
She’s now the first female swimmer to sweep the 200, 400 and 800 since Debbie Meyer did it in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico.
Bethesda’s Katie Ledecky set an Olympic record in her preliminary heat of the 800-meter freestyle Thursday afternoon with a time of 8 minutes, 12.86 seconds.
Though Ledecky deferred a year to train for the Olympics, the 19-year-old has committed to Stanford University. “It’s about setting goals and going after them”. Another American, Nathan Adrian, took the bronze. And when the Olympics are done, they’ll be remembered as the latest in a long line of USA swimming powerhouses.
“Going in to the final round I definitely wasn’t as stressed as my family probably were at home”, – reigning Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford insists he had his emotions in check after two foul jumps left him in danger of missing Saturday’s final. He already has won the gold in the 4x200m medley in the 2016 Rio Olympics, so look for the United States to be favored in this one as well.
How to watch: Catch the men’s team as they face Serbia live online at 6 p.m. EDT and the women’s team against Canada at 2:30 p.m. EDT.
She’s rooming with fellow gold-medalist Simone Manuel.
Turns out, the less-than-glittering times at the US trials were no indication of how fast they would swim once they got to the big stage.
Advertisement
That was bigger than the crowds in Rio, where there were plenty of empty seats each night.
