For Phelps, the butterfly victory was especially sweet after the sting of the London defeat, where he misjudged his final lunge for the wall to let Le Clos steal the gold medal.
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It was the fourth successive U.S. Olympic victory in the event.
The Americans led throughout, with Conor Dwyer handing over to Townley Haas and Ryan Lochte. Japan’s Masato Sakai ran him close to collect the silver in the butterfly, while Hungary’s Tamas Kenderesi won bronze.
Le Clos, who clocked 1:52.96 for gold in 2012, could only manage a 1:54.06.
The 27-year-old, who set an Olympic record of two minutes, 6.58 seconds, had already won the 400 individual medley on Saturday and 100 backstroke on Monday. Ledecky, 19, pipped Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom and Australia’s Emma McKeon to win the 200 freestyle, on top of her victory in the 400 on Sunday. The last woman to win three individual swimming golds at an Olympics was Inge De Bruijn of the Netherlands at the 2000 Sydney Games.
The only one of the bunch to do it in three individual events, as Hosszu has done, was Evans, who won the 400m and 800m free and the 400m IM. “I honestly can’t believe I have three golds”.
Ledecky described the race as gruelling, saying she “hurt really badly” and pushed herself “to the max”.
‘Because he’s so emotional and he really wants us to get the goals we set for ourselves, that’s probably why he’s able to be that way, ‘ she added. On Tuesday, en route to her 200m freestyle gold in 1min 53.73sec, Ledecky’s body ached like never before at these Olympics.
Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu continued her Olympic resurgence Tuesday night, winning gold in the 200-meter individual medley for her third gold at the Rio Games in four days.
Hosszu shattered the world record in the 400m medley, claimed gold in the 100m backstroke and held off Britain’s Siobhan-Marie O’Connor to take the 200m individual medley.
With all those London nerves behind her, Hosszu is ready to seize her chance to match East Germany’s Kristin Otto’s 1988 feat of winning four individual golds in a single Games. She was sixth at 50 meters in 28.84 but caught up to the field with 25 meters to go and raced home to win in 58.45, 0.30 ahead of American second-place finisher Kathleen Baker.
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Her time of 2:06.88 was a British record.
