RIO DE JANEIRO (APP) – Michael Phelps brought down the curtain on his record-breaking career with his 23rd Olympic gold medal as Mo Farah stole the show at the athletics with a gritty 10,000m win on Saturday.
Ryan Murphy broke a seven-year-old world record in the backstroke leg of the 4x100m medley relay, but Phelps still needed to come from behind on the butterfly before Nathan Adrian touched in a new Olympic mark of 3min 27.95sec.
It was a fittingly triumphant swansong for Phelps, 31, the most decorated Olympian in history, who added five golds and a silver in Rio to finish with 28 medals overall.
Earlier, the United States also won the women’s 4x100m medley relay—the country’s 1,000th gold medal in Olympic competition according to the US Olympic Committee.
Usain Bolt launched his bid for the ‘treble-treble’ by cantering through the 100m preliminaries but all eyes were on Farah as he survived a nasty fall to retain his 10,000m crown.
Farah picked himself up after being clipped by training partner Galen Rupp and he produced a trademark surge on the last bend to win it in 27min 05.17sec.
“When I went down, I thought, ‘Oh my God, that is it.’ I just got up and wanted to stick with the guys and stay strong,” Farah said. “It’s never easy but everyone knows what I can do.”
Elaine Thompson ended the reign of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce with a women’s 100m victory of 10.71sec which torpedoed her fellow Jamaican’s hopes of an Olympic hat-trick in the event.
Tori Bowie of the United States took silver with 10.83sec while Fraser-Pryce claimed bronze in 10.86.
