RIO DE JANEIRO-Katie Ledecky of the United States destroyed the field in the 800 metres freestyle on Friday, breaking her own world record to complete a rare Olympic swimming treble.
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Jazmin Carlin of Great Britain came in second at 8 minutes, 16.17 seconds, more than 11 seconds slower than Ledecky.
Katie Ledecky, bottom, finishes the race as her teammates Allison Schmitt, Maya DiRado and Leah Smith, from left, celebrate their gold-medal relay win.
“I’ve said it before, I try not to think too much about the history of anything”, Ledecky said after qualifying fastest for the final of her pet event on Thursday in an Olympic record of 8 minutes 12.86 seconds.
The 19-year-old superstar freestyle swimmer turned in perhaps her most impressive race of these Olympics, taking gold in her weakest individual event of the week, the women’s 200-meter freestyle.
Swimmer Katie Ledecky set a world record en route to winning the gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle.
Carlin told BBC One: “Two silver medals, it is an incredible feeling”. Basically, she blew everyone out of the water, and then blew Olympics-watching Twitter’s mind in the process. “I couldn’t have gone any faster, it’s impossible”.
After two years of hard labor in the pool and harder self-reflective work out of it, Phelps said, “I’m enjoying the sport like I did when I was an 18-year-old”.
“Finishing up with a relay and with these thee fantastic girls was a dream come true”, Schmitt, who earned her third consecutive medal in the event, said through USA Swimming.
Phelps settled for silver along with two longtime rivals, Chad le Clos of South Africa and Laszlo Cseh of Hungary.
Franklin’s torch has been passed to Ledecky, who joined Michael Phelps and Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu as three-time swimming gold medalists in Rio. The Americans’ time of 7:43.03 was nearly two seconds ahead of the Australians.
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This was Ledecky’s fourth medal of the Games and her third gold. “I don’t know what to believe, like, whether I actually did it or I’m still preparing for my race”. China is in second place with 23 medals (10 gold). Anton Chupkov of Russian Federation took the bronze finishing in 2:07.70.
