Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom extended Saturday’s record spree in winning the 100 metres butterfly, and Peaty and Ledecky followed suit in the next two finals before the USA men’s team, with Phelps swimming second, took the 4×100 freestyle relay.
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Katie Ledecky already holds the world-record in the 400, 800 and 1,500 meter freestyles, so now all that’s left for the 19-year-old Washingtonian is to beat her own scores. She also broke the world record twice along the way, first at the 2014 USA national championships and then breaking that record 14 days later at the Pan Pacific Championships.
In the butterfly, Sjostrom became the first Swedish woman to win an Olympic gold medal, with Canada’s 16-year-old Penny Oleksiak taking silver.
It was a night of records in the Rio 2016 pool on Sunday as Michael Phelps added to his Olympic gold medal haul.
Ledecky is scheduled to next compete Thursday, when she is expected to vie for the 800-meter freestyle gold medal. Ledecky let up at the end of the race, which didn’t matter since the second-place swimmer, Great Britain’s Jazmin Carlin, was more than four seconds behind.
Another night, another world record for Adam Peaty. Bruce Gemmel, the coach who has helped build her astonishing range at distances from the 100 to 1,500 meters, hung 3:56 out there for her a while ago, and it was one of the few things Ledecky hasn’t done. If her performances are anything similar to Sunday night’s sublime showing, history is well within her grasp. The 19-year-old crushed the mark of 3:58.37 that she set almost two years ago on the Gold Coast of Australia, and had been chasing ever since. World record holder and Katinka Hosszu swam a 58.94 for the second fastest time in the event.
Smith qualified for the final after finishing second in her heat in a time of 4:03.39, the third fastest qualifying time. This time, she will enter the race as the unquestionable favorite instead of the unlikely contender she was at age 15.
“A lot of the reason why swimming is so hard is you have your face in the water for a very long time”, says Smith. The American, who has not lost an individual final in her career at 12 finals and 12 gold medals and made it 13 for 13 in this event.
She has two more chances to win medals later this week.
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“The feeling is totally insane”, Sjostrom said. “I knew I was due for a breakthrough”. After Housszu’s win, Hicks said Tusup was “the man responsible” for her record-breaking swim. The crowd at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium went into frenzy at the sight of two Brazilians in the final.
