Katie Ledecky will also be back in action as she swims in the 800m freestyle, an event where she is the reigning Olympic champion and world record holder.
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After winning four gold medals at these games and looking unbeatable, Phelps finally ran out of steam in what was the final individual race of his career unless he decides to come out of retirement again. She is the first woman to sweep the 200, 400 and 800 freestyle finals at one Olympic Games since Debbie Meyer in 1968. Four years earlier she was the youngest athlete in the United States delegation, but even then the 15-year-old had won Gold in her pet event, the 800M, in London.
At 8:04.79 in the finals, Ledecky bettered her mark by almost two full seconds. He rallied but did not have enough in his legs to catch 21-year-old Joseph Schooling of Singapore, who won in an Olympic-record time of 50.39 seconds. Somebody said to me, maybe at Olympic Trials. Tears streamed down her face as the national anthem played during the medal ceremony, her history-making week finally over. “But I proved my place is in sport and in judo”, said the gritty 24-year-old who has spoken forcefully about racism in her country whilst she is in the Olympic headlines. It’s her fourth gold medal in the Rio Olympics.
Ervin won his first gold in the 50-metres freestyle at the 2000 Sydney Olympics in a dead heat with compatriot Gary Hall Jr, before leaving the sport to pursue a love of rock music. In the men’s 100m butterfly final, Michael Phelps was denied his 23rd gold medal, as he finished joint second alongside three others with a timing of 51.14.
GOLD FOR CARTER: American Michelle Carter won the country’s first medal since 1960 in shot put – and a gold one, at that – using her last throw of the night (20.63 meters) to beat two-time defending champion Valerie Adams of New Zealand.
“The best team did not win today”, she said.
One more impressive fact about Ledecky – she is 14 for 14 in individual events at major global competitions.
“My doping is my training and my doping is Jesus”, she said via a translator.
Marsh shared a meal with Ledecky and her parents the other day and stressed one goal Ledecky should have outside the pool in the next several weeks. He and Ledecky, who grew up 45 minutes apart in different Maryland suburbs, have totaled 10 medals at these games, eight of them gold.
Irene Steer is the only Welsh swimmer to win an Olympic title in the 4x100m relay at the 1912 Games in Stockholm while Davies Davies won two medals – a 1,500m bronze in 2004 and open water silver in 2008.
“It is OK to be a coward if you win”, Sundhage said.
And as she contemplated her achievement in Rio, the preternaturally poised teen couldn’t hold back her emotions. What she did here in Rio was nothing short of unbelievable. The fresh-faced teenager, who keeps breaking her own records., says that on top of pushing herself further, she is ‘having fun’proving this is only the beginning of her legacy. At age 19, she’s both the youngest member of the USA swim team and its most sure-thing victor. At an age of just 19 years, this young swimmer has set 13 World Records in her short career.
“I have been feeling a bit rough for a couple of days, so to come away with a silver medal is an incredible feeling”. “We were just kind of staking our claim in Rio, and I think we kind of did that in the pool as well”.
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“She’s getting so much faster that she’s starting to beat my times in distance events, which is insane”, 12-time Olympic medalist Ryan Lochte said.
