A pair of Hoosiers helped author a golden ending to the swimming events at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics on Saturday night.
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The Americans regained the lead in the butterfly, as Phelps overtook James Guy, and Adrian held off Duncan Scott in the final straight to give the United States of America their 16th swimming gold medal in Rio.
The U.S. have won the event at every Olympics since 1960, except the 1980 Games in Moscow which they boycotted.
Speaking of comebacks, Phelps insists he won’t be coming out of retirement again to take on Tokyo in 2020.
Ryan Murphy gave the U.S.an early half-second lead in the 4×100 meter relay, setting a world record as Cody Miller jumped, keeping the U.S.in contention as Phelps jumped in to attempt to get the lead back.
It may be what Phelps did out of the pool that was even more important though.
He wouldn’t be for long.
He overhauled Britain’s James Guy to send Adrian into the final freestyle leg with a lead he wouldn’t relinquish.
It wasn’t in doubt after that.
Phelps swam the butterfly third leg of a tight race, pushing the USA from second behind Great Britain up to first before freestyle specialist Nathan Adrian saw it home for gold in an Olympic record time of three minutes 27.95 seconds.
Britain finished 2.71 seconds adrift, with Australia in third.
“That’s freaking awesome”, the former Ravens linebacker told The Baltimore Sun of the notion that he had anything to do with Phelps’ last individual gold medal. “I think a message that our whole team really wants to get across to people is that, ‘No matter what you do, work as hard as you can at it but make sure you are also enjoying it'”.
The relay team, which consists of Kathleen Baker, Lilly King, Dana Vollmer and Simone Manuel, won the gold with a 3:53.13 time. Denmark took bronze in 3:55.01.
“We are planning for some form of a street parade for him and I believe this is a good form of endorsement for what he has achieved”.
The US had arrived in Rio with 977 gold medals, according to Olympstats.com, and had sat on 998 for much of the day until Jeff Henderson put them on the brink with his victory in the long jump.
But a team is never about just one individual, or how many medals they win. She became the first African-American woman to win an Olympic swimming title with her win in the 100 free.
Connor Jaeger gave the US another silver in the 1,500 free, leaving the American with 33 swimming medals in Rio matching the highest total since the boycotted Los Angeles Games in 1984.
The U.S. also won 33 medals at Sydney in 2000.
After posting the top time in both the preliminaries and the semifinals, Blume came through again on the final night of swimming at the Rio Games. She finished in 24.07. Aliaksandra Herasimenia of Belarus earned the bronze in 24.11.
Australia’s team comprised Emily Seebohm, Taylor McKeown, Emma McKeon and Cate Campbell while Mie Nielsen, Rikke Moller Pedersen, Jeanette Ottesen and Pernille Bloom represented Denmark.
Blume was the third Danish swimmer to capture a gold. Greta Andersen won the 100 free and Karen Margrethe Harup took the 100 backstroke at the 1948 London Olympics.
Paltrinieri, the 1500m gold medallist at last year’s world championships in Russian Federation, led from the outset and swam under world record pace for much of the race before easing off in the final laps.
Jaeger claimed silver in 14:39.48, while bronze went to another Italian, Gabriele Detti, in 14:40.86.
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The night, though, belonged to Phelps, who walked out of the arena for final time carrying an American flag handed to him by his mother from her front-row seat, right next to Johnson and little Boomer.
