Swimming: Relay hands Ledecky third gold of Rio Games

The U.S. women have traditionally won gold in this event, which was introduced in 1996; they won captured the Olympic title in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2012 and came away with the bronze in 2008.

“I was so excited to get the call-up to be on this relay”.

The barber who cut Phelps’ hair, Raefus Cox, is clearly taking great joy in seeing Phelps’ cut on the main stage, telling the Undefeated, “To see a haircut that I did on the Olympic stage – it’s incredible”.

So that left it up to Katie to save the day for the US team, who never led at any point before she dove into the water.

Michael Phelps keeps reminding people this is, what he believes to be, his last Olympics.

And who knows what the global community would have thought of then 18-year-old Park Tae-Hwan, only the second-ever South Korean swimmer to reach an Olympic final, who lost to a world-record time by Phelps in the 200-meter freestyle event in Beijing.

Phelps has won more golds in the pool than China’s men and women combined, and he has not finished yet.

“Coming into this, I didn’t think it was possible”, he added of the victory.

In the heats for the men’s 50-meter freestyle at the 2016 Olympics, Nathan Adrian and Anthony Ervin finished second and third, respectively, behind top finisher Andriy Hovorov of Ukraine.

Ledecky cruised to a win in the 800 free prelims in 8 minutes, 12.86 seconds at the Rio Olympics. “It’s all just about doing my best every time”. They’re heroes of mine, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to front up. But, at 31, he started to wobble in the last few metres and had to hold off a fierce late challenge from Japan’s Masato Sakai to get his hands on the wall first in a time of one minute 53.36 seconds. Adrian, bronze medalist in the 100 free on Wednesday, touched in 21.61. She also won the 200m freestyle and 400m freestyle finals in addition to the silver medal in the 4x100m freestyle.

“It’s been a really fun journey over the last couple of years, and a journey that I think has made me the person who I am and helped me transform to me just being me”, he added of his relationship.

“Finishing up with a relay and with these thee incredible girls was a dream come true”, Schmitt, who earned her third consecutive medal in the event, said through USA Swimming.

Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, a two-time Olympic champion in the 200 back, qualified ninth.