Katie Ledecky became the most decorated female Olympic swimmer of all time but was made to settle for silver as Australia won the 4x200m freestyle relay on Thursday night at La Défense Arena.
One night after the 27-year-old American became the first female swimmer to win gold medals at four different Olympics after retaining her title in the 1500m freestyle, Ledecky added a 13th Olympic medal, one more than countrywomen Jenny Thompson, Dara Torres and Natalie Coughlin and Australia’s Emma McKeon.
The Australian team of Mollie O’Callaghan, Lani Pallister, Brianna Throssell and Ariarne Titmus finished in an Olympic record time of 7min 38.08sec.
Ledecky’s strong third leg brought teammates Claire Weinstein, Paige Madden and Erin Gemmell up from third to second but it wasn’t enough to catch their Australian rivals, who touched 2.78sec sooner to clinch gold.
“It’s just amazing to get to be a part of even one-thirteenth of the journey that she’s been on,” Gemmell said. “It’s so much more fun to be on a relay than to be by yourself and we just had a great time out there tonight.”
Earlier Kate Douglass gave the Americans a much-needed boost by claiming her first individual Olympic gold with a win in the 200m breaststroke ahead of South Africa’s Tatjana Smith and Tes Schouten of the Netherlands, who took silver and bronze respectively.
The 22-year-old Douglass, who has blossomed into one of the world’s most versatile swimmers since winning bronze in the 200m individual medley on her Olympic debut three years ago, has been hotly tipped to improve on her medal in that event later this week.
“I feel like it was kind of just a long time coming,” Douglass said. “This whole year I’ve been training and physically preparing for this exact race. Just kind of seeing it all come together and sticking to my race plan, I was just so excited to see that I’d gone first and [broken] an American record too. I feel like it’s a surreal moment. I don’t know if all of the emotions have set in yet.”
Before that Canada’s budding superstar Summer McIntosh claimed her second gold with a dominant showing in the 200m butterfly final, dealing the American Regan Smith the fourth silver medal of a career that is still awaiting a first gold.
“To be honest I don’t want to think about what it means to win gold against silver,” the 22-year-old Smith said. “If you get too wrapped up in your head about that, you are never going to be happy. I want to be proud of myself regardless. It’s a cliche answer but it is true.
“If this had happened three years ago I would have been gutted and it would have affected my mental health for a long time. And it did. I was struggling after Tokyo for a long time.
“But I’m glad, I have a lot more life experience, and I’m in a much better place in my life with swimming. I love it and it is the biggest passion I’ve had in my life but it is not my entire life. But I’m going to keep fighting like hell. If I walk away with a gold medal, excellent, if I don’t, I’m still me and I’m just fine.”
Douglass’ gold was the fourth for the United States at these Paris Games to go with 11 silvers and six bronzes.
