First up, Baltimore’s Michael Phelps sought his fourth consecutive gold medal in the 100-meter butterfly final, the last individual race of his 16-year Olympic career. Phelps finished the race in a time of 1:54.66, and three swimmers looked set at the halfway stage for a new world record timing. It was close until the final 100m when a brilliant breaststroke and then an awesome freestlye left his opponents gasping.
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Sixteen years after winning his first individual gold medal at the Olympics, Anthony Ervin picked up his second with a furious dash from one end of the pool to the other.
The 31-year-old has now won each of his four finals in Rio so far – the 200m butterfly, the 4x100m freestyle, the 4x200m freestyle and the 200m individual medley.
Ledecky and Franklin will also be looking to win medals in races where they own world records. “We bring the best out of each other”, Lochte said after Wednesday’s semifinals, in which he finished just after Phelps.
CBC’s Elliotte Friedman thought Phelps was Lochte the whole time.
Ledecky’s name will go down in history next to Debbie Meyer’s as the only female swimmers ever to win three individual freestyle events at one Games.
Japan’s Kosuke Hagino took the silver, while China’s Wang Shun claimed the bronze. The 31-year-old fell off the pace just a little in the last 100 metres, to elude what would have been a world record set under unbelievable circumstances.
“If somebody had told me four years ago I would be stood on the podium with two silver medals, I would have said “There’s no way”. He’s the world-record holder and I’m the defending champion”.
In 2015, he showed that he was going to be a medal contender for Rio when he finished third at the world championships in Russian Federation, albeit with Phelps absent. Bronze went to Canada’s Hilary Caldwell. Fran Hansall qualified fourth fastest for the women’s 50m freestyle despite a problematic trip to the aquatics venue after the driver of her bus headed for the athletics venue instead.
Elsewhere cyclist Bradley Wiggins became Britain’s most decorated Olympian of all time and Rafael Nadal, returning from a wrist injury, won men’s doubles gold. His final event of the 2016 Rio Olympics will be the 100M butterfly, Friday night. “I was a little bummed about my performance, but I was happy for him to get a gold and get one for Team USA”.
Doesn’t he have enough Olympic gold medals? This is it. I said it a bunch before.
“If it wasn’t for Michael, I don’t think I could have gotten to this point”.
No means no. No amount of cajoling, arm-twisting and pleading by his team mates and swimming fans around the world will make Michel Phelps change his mind about retiring after the Rio Olympics.
Singapore’s first Olympics medal was won by weightlifter Tan Howe Liang, who bagged a silver in Rome in 1960.
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The 6-foot-1 swimmer – who was eighth fastest in the 50 heats with a time 24.57 seconds – was asked about the advantage of height for swimmers like herself and Oleksiak.
