Victor of three golds and five medals overall in London four years ago, she battled depression and didn’t qualify for an individual event in Rio.
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Ledecky owns the world record in 800-meter freestyle.
Katie Ledecky continued her dominance in the women’s 800-meter freestyle in Rio on Friday, earning her second consecutive gold in the event with a world-record time of eight minutes, 4.79 seconds. Ledecky has now broken her own world record six times in the 800-meter freestyle.
She is the third woman and sixth swimmer to win gold in both the 200 and 400 freestyle at the same Olympics.
However, the favorite for that race has to be Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu, who topped the prelim heats with a time of 2:06.09 and is seeking her fourth gold medal of the Rio Games.
Then she waited for the rest of the field to finish.
Anchoring the relay, Ledecky took over the lead in the first 100 and brought it home.
It was Phelps’s 27th overall medal, and his tally now reads 22 gold, three silver and two bronze.
Now, all eyes are on Ledecky, who at age 19 is still the youngest member of the US swim team in Rio. So, unless Phelps decides to come out of retirement again, his final individual race at the Olympics will go down as a silver.
“I was so excited to get the call up today to be on this relay”, said DiRado. “That really meant a lot to me”. Ledecky won the same three events here in Rio.
Athletes with ties to Maryland have snagged 12 Olympic medals.
She said that Meyer had sent her a video message of support via her mother before the race. “I’m happy I get tonight off, get tomorrow [afternoon] off”.
And get this: Ledecky’s relay time was only one-hundredth of a second slower than her winning time in the 200 free the previous night.
A freelance writer based in Vermont, Peggy Shinn is in Rio covering her fourth Olympic Games.
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Coming off the 20th and 21st gold medals of his career, Michael Phelps wasn’t up for any hardware. The American duo had the two fastest times in the semifinals Wednesday night, with Phelps coming in at one minute, 55.78 seconds, less than a second faster than Lochte.
