Later on Tuesday, Phelps looks to win gold medal No. 20 when he swims in the 200-meter butterfly against South African Chad le Clos, who beat Phelps in London; the US women’s gymnastics team goes for gold in the team competition; and Lochte is set to make his Rio debut in the preliminaries of the men’s 4×200-meter relay.
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Ledecky had the fastest time in preliminary heats, but was narrowly edged out in her semifinal heat by Sjostrom, who posted a time of 1:54.65 to beat Ledecky by 0.16 seconds and leave her as the second fastest in the semis. Tamas Kenderesi of Hungary won the bronze medal in 1:53.62.
With the win, Ledecky becomes the first reigning world champion in the event to win the Olympic gold medal since East Germany’s Heike Friedrich in 1988.
Sjostrom said the 200-metre distance is a struggle for her and said it’s “always tough” to race Ledecky, whom she called “the queen of freestyle”.
WORLD-RECORD LIFT: Deng Wei won Olympic gold and set a world record in women’s weightlifting, hoisting 147 kilograms in the clean and jerk and 115 in the snatch for a total of 262.
“That would mean the world to me”, she said.
The Americans extended their streak to four straight gold medals with the event, winning by three-plus minutes with Great Britain taking the silver medal.
“I definitely think it’s something more than physical”, Schmitz said. She also has an 800m free gold from the 2012 London Games.
About an hour later, Phelps was back in the water again, anchoring the men’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay in a race that was far from close, with the US team – Conor Dwyer; Townley Haas; Ryan Lochte; and Phelps – shaving 6 seconds off their qualifying time to finish at 7:00.66 – just 2 seconds off the world record. Now the question may not be if the Americans will win the gold but by how much. “Most importantly, her expectations of herself to do this”. She beat her best time, and broke the world record.
The Hungarian known as the “Iron Lady” earned her third gold medal of the Rio Games with a victory in the 200 individual medley.
Ledecky had smashed her world record in the 400-meter freestyle on Sunday night. “And just to see the 56 up there feels really good”. Once I was ahead I knew I wasn’t going to let it out of my hands. The bronze medal went to Emma McKeon of Australia, at 1:54.92. “I took it out pretty fast and kind of forced everybody to try to do that”.
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Then, after churning her final 50 meters in only 28.92 seconds, the official victory margin was 4.77 seconds over silver medalist Jazz Carlin of Great Britain, who might as well have stayed back in London, she was so far behind.
