Her qualifying time of 8 minutes, 12.86 seconds was an Olympic record, and the 19-year-old American was almost seven seconds faster than anyone else.
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Maya DiRado of the United States was third fastest as she also chases her fourth medal in Rio.
It was the first of Phelps’ five races in which he didn’t win a gold medal.
The gold on Friday brings Ledecky’s haul in Rio to four, and she has a silver medal to boot.
A stunner at the Rio Olympics: Michael Phelps was beaten. Smith earned a gold medal as part of the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay.
Phelps wound up in a three-way tie for silver along with two longtime rivals, Chad le Clos of South Africa and Laszlo Cseh of Hungary.
“I don’t know what to believe”, Schooling said. I love seeing the way she attacks things. “She’s beating me now, and I’m, like, ‘What is going on?'”
In the blink of an eye, Ervin went from one end of the pool to the other in a furious dash, edging the defending Olympic champion, Florent Manaudou of France, by a mere hundredth of a second. “Whether I actually did it or whether I’m still preparing for my race”.
“That’s pretty insane, what happens in eight years”, said Schooling, who attends the University of Texas.
Phelps qualified for the 100m butterfly finals in fantastic fashion Thursday night, swimming in the semifinals a little more than a half hour after winning gold in the 200-meter individual medley.
And there was Schooling, who swam the top qualifying time and beat Phelps in the 100 butterfly in Austin, Texas, on June 3, and who grew up transfixed by Phelps’ races.
She already held the world records in the 400-, 800-, and 1,500-meter freestyle coming into the RIo Games and broke her own record in the 400m when she won gold on Sunday.
“I have to wait another four years to have this moment and I just wanted to enjoy it all and put my very best swim out there”, Ledecky said after her final race in Rio.
“It’s tough when you’ve got such an incredible athlete in your event and someone who breaks world records every time she swims”, Carlin said.
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Though Phelps’ record in the 100 butterfly suggests utter dominance, he had won his previous three gold medals by a combined 0.28 of a second. What’s unbelievable is that she was already crushing the competition in the event, but she beat her own best time by so much. In London, Ledecky was the youngest athlete on the entire US delegation; in Rio, she’s the youngest female swimmer on the team. Boglarka Kapas of Hungary took bronze.
