Soaring effortlessly and precisely through the air inside the Rio Olympic Arena, MacLennan posted a score of 56.465 to become the first Canadian athlete to win gold medals in consecutive summer games.
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There was defeat for Michael Phelps in the final of the 100m butterfly where Singapore’s Joseph Schooling claimed his country’s first Olympic gold medal.
Ledecky closed out her Rio trip with a bang, shattering her own world record in the 800-meter freestyle Friday night.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) Day 7 of the Rio Games features medal action in swimming, track and field, track cycling, fencing, judo and more.
Italian Daniele Garozzo stunned top-ranked American Alexander Massialas to win the individual gold Sunday.
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.
It again pitted Phelps against his young rival, le Clos, who was looking for revenge after what he called “the worst performance of my career” in the 200 butterfly final.
“There’s nothing I can do”, Phelps said after Friday’s race. He’ll soon be marrying his fiancee, Nicole Johnson.
‘I have been working on that side as well and not just the physical aspect’. “I’m ready to spend some time with Boomer and Nicole and watch the little dude grow”.
In his role as team uncle, Phelps went even further, praising the entire next generation of US swimmers.
“Two silver medals, it is an incredible feeling”.
They clasped hands and stepped up together.
“I’ve really enjoyed being an amateur”, Ledecky said.
“That’s pretty insane, what happens in eight years”, said Schooling, who attends the University of Texas. There have been times where I haven’t believed in myself. Kristin Otto of East Germany won six gold medals at the 1988 Seoul Games. Though she managed to qualify for Rio by finishing fourth at the world championships last November, she noticed an odd and troubling symptom when she ramped up her training program early this year: her eyes would start shaking in the middle of her routine.
And two other Americans won gold, too.
Anthony Ervin, meanwhile, triumphed in the men’s 50m freestyle at the age of 35, some 16 years on from winning the same event at the Sydney Olympics. With the potential of another three Olympics in front of her, she now has the chance to become one of the most dominant female swimmers in history, and certainly the best freestyler the world has ever seen. She is the first woman since 1968 to sweep the 200-, 400- and 800-meter freestyle events in a single Olympics.
The 19-year-old, who also won the 4x200m relay for four golds overall, touched in 8min 04.79sec, beating her own previous world record of 8:06.68.
Then she waited for the rest of the field to finish.
Carlin, 400m silver medallist behind Ledecky last Saturday, clocked eight minutes 16.17 seconds to take silver ahead of Boglarka Kapas of Hungary, who finished in 8mins 16.37.
The impression one gets is that if Ledecky kicked harder, if she did what her competitors are doing, it would only disrupt her mystifying propulsion.
“I hit all my goals right on the nose this week”, Ledecky said.
It was Ledecky’s fourth gold of the Games and fifth in all as she successfully defended the title she won at London 2012, when she was 15.
U.S. women vs. Canada, 2:30 p.m. ET; U.S. men vs. Serbia, 6 p.m. ET: Both American teams return to the court Friday.
“To come away with two silvers is wonderful”, Carlin said.
Turns out, it was swimming all along.
Medals also will be awarded in the men’s 1500 meter freestyle but defending champion Sun Yang of China failed to qualify. Now, improbably, he’s back on the top of the podium again.
DiRado, 23, already has a job lined up in Atlanta after the Olympics and made it clear she would be retiring no matter the results.
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“I think that’s what I need is to bring that smile that I used to have back into the sport”, he said.
