The two highest gold-medal totals in an individual Olympics for the US came in years the country hosted – 1904 in St. Louis (76) and 1984 in Los Angeles (83).
Advertisement
According to TeamUSA.org, “no USA woman had ever finished top-two in both freestyle sprint races before”.
Phelps, 31, the silver medalist in the 100 butterfly the night before, retook the lead in his fly leg Saturday night, and freestyler Nathan Adrian brought home the victory. “It’s been a dream-come-true week”. Their victory marked the 1,000th Summer Olympics gold medal for the United States.
United States’ gold medal victor Simone Manuel cries during the medal ceremony for the women’s 100-meter freestyle final during the swimming competitions at the 2016 Summer Olympics, Friday, Aug. 12, 2016, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“I didn’t have too much pressure on me. Just being on the podium is an wonderful honor”.
The honor of reaching the milestone was shared by Kathleen Baker, Lilly King, Dana Vollmer and Simone Manuel, who got to the wall first ahead of Australia.
Two days after becoming the first African-American female swimmer to win an individual gold medal, the 20-year-old took the silver in the 50-meter freestyle Saturday at Aquatics Stadium with a time of 24.09 seconds.
Advertisement
Joining Blume in the final are Australian sprinting sisters Cate and Bronte Campbell, who advanced in second and fifth place, respectively.
