Evansville’s Lilly King claimed another Olympic gold medal Saturday night by swimming on the United States 4×100 medley relay team.
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Manuel won the 100-meter freestyle in Rio (as well as swimming to a 50 free silver earlier Saturday night), while King was crowned in the breaststroke, Baker earned silver in the backstroke and Vollmer won bronze in the butterfly.
The U.S. had been the fastest-qualifying team by over two seconds, coming in with a 3:54.67 swim over No. 2 Canada at 3:56.80 and No. 3 Denmark at 3:56.98.
Her jaw dropped as she looked up to the scoreboard and saw a tie for gold and an Olympic-record time of 52.70 seconds. Kathleen Baker led off with backstroke, Lilly King crushed the breaststroke, Dana Vollmer maintained in fly and freestyler Simone Manuel anchored.
Canada was seeded to edge Denmark for silver with Russian Federation and Australia also considered medal threats. The U.S. now has won 32 medals, its most since 2000 in Sydney.
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An unexpected long jump gold medal earlier Saturday night gave the USA women’s relay a shot at the milestone gold. King, who had openly criticized Efimova for having twice failed drug tests for using performance-enhancing substances.
