Phelps began the butterfly leg with the USA in second position, but he set a blistering pace to give his team the lead by the end of his 100m.
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The battle for silver was won by Jazz Carlin of Britain who took in 8:16.17, almost 20 metres behind Ledecky, while bronze went to Boglarka Kapas of Hungary who was 2 tenths further off Carlin. “This is it. I said it before, but you guys can say, this is the last time”. Murphy broke U.S.A.’s previous Olympic record, which gave him his third gold medal at Rio 2016. And Jamaica got its first gold of the Rio Games with an emphatic win in the marquee Olympic sprinting event.
The U.S. women’s rowing team won its third straight gold medal in coxed eight. Miller, also making his first Olympic appearance in 2016, earned a bronze medal in the 100m breaststroke. The gold won by the relay team of Kathleen Baker, Lilly King, Dana Vollmer and Manuel, has been recognized by the US Olympic Committee as the nation’s 1,000th gold medal in Summer Olympics history. This was Logan’s third gold medal, which is the most golds ever earned by a U.S. women’s rower.
Simone Manuel made history by becoming the first African-American woman to win an individual swimming medal, but she didn’t stop there.
The 31-year-old Phelps furthered his legend by winning five gold and one silver at the Rio Games after coming out of retirement in 2014.
Denmark’s Pernille Blume beat a field of world and Olympic champions to take gold in the women’s 50m freestyle and Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri won the men’s 1,500m freestyle after dominating nearly from the start.
“It’s really special and the fact that I can do it with a relay is awesome”, she said after the US women beat Australia and Denmark.
Phelps went out on top Saturday night, winning one last gold in the 4×100-meter medley relay in his final race in Rio, and according to him, his final competitive race ever.
“I am getting older and I do find it harder to recover”, Phelps said when explaining his decision to quit back in 2012.
“These Games really showed his growth”, teammate Anthony Ervin said of Phelps. Defending champion Greg Rutherford of Britain received bronze.
Those wins allowed the USA swimmers to reach the milestone.
Elaine Thompson ended the reign of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce with a women’s 100m victory of 10.71sec which torpedoed her fellow Jamaican’s hopes of an Olympic hat-trick in the event.
Two lengths later and the United States was in the clear and heading for gold followed by Team GB which would eventually claim silver and Australia bronze.
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The victory makes Ledecky only the second woman to win the 200m, 400m and 800m Olympic titles at the same Games.
