LONDON, Aug 3 (Reuters) -Michael Phelps, showing no signs of complacency after breaking every imaginable record in Olympic swimming, won the men’s 100 meters butterfly gold medal at the London Games on Friday.
Swimming: Day 7 Finals
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On the eve of his retirement, Phelps provided an unforgettable reminder of his incredible talent and determination when he came from seventh at the turn to overpower his rivals and win in a time of 51.21 seconds.
South Africa’s Chad le Clos, who beat Phelps in the 200 butterfly final, dead-heated for second with Russia’s Evgeny Korotyshkin but neither man could hold Phelps off once he started to roll his giant shoulders and kick his powerful feet.
By winning, he joined his American team mate Missy Franklin as the only triple gold medalists in London after she broke the world record in the 200 backstroke final a few minutes earlier and took his career tally to 21 medals, including 17 golds.
American teenager Missy Franklin confirmed her arrival as the new queen of the pool when she broke the world record to win the 200 meters backstroke final.
The 17-year-old from Colorado led the four-lap race from start to finish to win in a time of two minutes 04.06 seconds, slashing three-quarters of a second off Kirsty Coventry’s world record, which was set in a now banned polyurethane bodysuit.
Russia’s Anastasia Zueva won the silver medal and America’s Elizabeth Beisel the bronze but neither could keep up with the bubbly Franklin, who opened up a body’s length over the field after just 75 meters.
Franklin, who won the 200 backstroke world title last year, became the first woman in 12 years to complete the backstroke double at the Olympics and the first American since Melissa Belote in 1972.
Franklin also won gold medals in the 100 backstroke and 4×200 freestyle relay and a bronze in the 4×100 freestyle relay in London and is not finished yet.
She still has the medley relay to come on Saturday where the U.S. are overwhelming favorites to win gold.
Zimbabwe’s Coventry had won the gold at the last two Olympics and was bidding to become just the third woman to win the same individual event at three Olympics but could only manage sixth place
American teenager Katie Ledecky pulled off a stunning upset in the women’s 800 meters freestyle final on Friday, ruining Rebecca Adlington’s hopes of providing Britain with their first gold medal in swimming at the London Olympics.
The 15-year-old Ledecky, the youngest member of the American team, gave her rivals no chance as she led all the way to snatch the gold medal in a time of eight minutes 14.63 seconds, missing the world record in the longest event for women in the pool by half a second.
Spain’s Mireia Belmonte Garcia took the silver, her second of the Games after she finished runner-up in the 200 butterfly two days ago, but was more than four seconds behind Ledecky, who slashed more than five seconds off her personal best.
Adlington held on to win the bronze despite fading over the last 150 meters after she had tried to take the field up to Ledecky, who set off at a cracking tempo and was under world record pace for all but the last lap.
Adlington ended Britain’s long drought in swimming champions by winning two gold medals in Beijing four years ago but finished third in both the 400 and 800 this time.
Florent Manaudou of France, the younger brother of Laure Manaudou, joined his famous sister on the top of the Olympic podium when he won the men’s 50 meters freestyle final.
The 21-year-old charged down the pool to get his hand on the wall first and win the frantic one-lap dash in a time of 21.34 seconds.
American Cullen Jones took the silver medal in 21.54 while the bronze went to Brazil’s Cesar Cielo in 21.59.
Cielo won the Olympic title in Beijing four years ago and both world championships in between, setting the current world record of 20.91 in Sao Paulo in 2009.
He was the quickest away off the blocks but was overhauled in the scramble to the finish by both Cullen and Manaudou, who qualified sixth fastest for the final.
Laure Manaudou won the women’s 400 freestyle gold at the Athens in 2004, becoming the first female French swimmer to win an Olympic title.
France have now won four swimming gold medals in London.
The eight finalists were separated by less than two-thirds of a second with American Anthony Ervin fifth in his comeback to the Olympics.
Ervin won the gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics but quit the sport three years later, saying he was fed up and wanted to find more meaning in his life. He only decided to make a comeback last year.
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