Rio de Janeiro, Aug 12 (IANS) It was a night of high drama at Rio’s Olympic Aquatics Stadium on Thursday with a new Michael Phelps record, a dead heat and Canada’s first gold medal of these Games.
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Ryan Murphy completed a sweep of the men’s backstroke events in the 200, but the most socially significant triumph was Simone Manuel tying 16-year-old Canadian Penny Oleksiak for the top spot in the 100 freestyle. Kazakhstan claimed its first-ever swimming medal – a gold one, at that – when Dmitriy Balandin pulled off a stunning upset in the 200 breaststroke.
Thursday’s victory was Phelps’ 22nd Olympic gold medal as he continues to extend his record as the most successful Olympian of all time. Phelps finished fist in his heat for the 200 meter individual medley and he had teammate Ryan Lochte right behind them.
On Friday, he will compete in the final of the 100m butterfly and he is expected to also take part in the 4x100m medley relay. Singapore’s Joseph Schooling was fastest in 50.83 seconds.
This is Smith’s second medal of the Rio Olympics after she earned bronze in the 400m freestyle on Sunday. Pieter Timmers of Belgium claimed the silver in 47.80, while Adrian made it onto the medal podium – with a bronze this time – in 47.85.
According to NBC Olympics, the two own 93 Olympic and world championship medals between them and they have combined for the last five world record progressions and all of the reported top 10 all-time performances.
Michael Phelps has smashed every record in the modern Olympics, that historians have began to compare the American swimmer to stars of the ancient Olympic Games.
The Brazilian favorite Thiago Pereira came in third with a time of 1:57.11.
Cate Campbell posted the fastest time in the semifinals, an Olympic-record 52.71 seconds and younger sister Bronte was fifth-fastest at 53.29. It was a far cry from the London Games, where “Missy The Missile” became only the second American woman to take four gold medals in a single Olympics. Phelps won each time and Lochte finished second, third and second. China’s Shi Jinglin took bronze in 2:22.28.
The world record belongs to Lochte, which he set in 2011.
Franklin’s torch has been passed to Ledecky, who joined Phelps and Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu as three-time swimming gold medalists in Rio.
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In the 50m freestyle semi-finals, France’s Florent Manaudou touched the wall first in 21.32, 0.14 seconds ahead of both Andrii Govorov of Ukraine and the US’ Anthony Ervin.
