American swimmer Katie Ledecky fought off disappointment to make history Wednesday at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
After finishing a stunning fifth in the 200m freestyle, Ledecky returned to the pool 70 minutes later to win the gold medal in the first-ever women’s 1500m freestyle in 15:37.34. She was 4.07 seconds ahead of fellow American Erica Sullivan and 5.57 seconds of Germany’s Sarah Kohler.
Ledecky, 24, won the silver medal on Monday in the women’s 400m. The 200m race was the first time she failed to medal when making the finals of an international event. Australian Ariarne Titmus set an Olympic record of 1:53.50 in winning the 200m.
“It means a lot,” she said of the gold medal — the sixth of her Olympic career. “People maybe feel bad that I’m not winning everything, but I want people to be more concerned about other things in the world. People are truly suffering. I’m just proud to bring home a gold medal to Team USA.”
Her two medals in Tokyo are part of the 31 won by the United States after five days of competition — 11 gold, 11 silver and nine bronze. Host nation Japan leads with 13 gold medals among its 22, while 12 of China’s 27 medals are gold. The Russia Olympic Committee athletes have 23 medals, good for third place overall:
In other Olympic action Wednesday:
–Damian Lillard hit seven 3-pointers to account for all 21 of his points, leading the United States men’s basketball team to a 120-66 win over Iran.
The United States (1-1) bounced back from an 83-76 loss to France in its Olympic opener on Sunday to start Group A action.
–WNBA players Stefanie Dolson, Allisha Gray, Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young led the U.S. to the first-ever gold medal in women’s 3-on-3 basketball, a sport introduced in the 2020 Olympics, with an 18-15 win over the Russia Olympic Committee team. Plum was the leading scorer in the tournament with 55 points. China took the bronze medal. In the men’s competition, Latvia took the gold medal, with ROC and Serbia finishing with the silver and bronze, respectively.
–Daiki Hashimoto of Japan won the men’s all-around gymnastics gold medal. Ruoteng Xiao of China earned the silver medal, with Russian Nikita Nagornyy winning the bronze.
–The U.S. women’s water polo team lost its first game in the Olympics since the 2008 final against the Netherlands. In dropping the group-stage game 10-9 to Hungary, Team USA is 130-4 since winning the gold medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics. It was the team’s first loss since January 2020 in Australia.
–The duo of Zongyuan Wang and Siyi Xie continued China’s dominance in diving, winning the men’s 3m synchronized springboard event with 467.82 points. Andrew Capobianco and Michael Hixon (444.36) of the United States won silver, with Germans Patrick Hausding and Lars Rudiger (404.73) earning the bronze.
–Japan’s Yui Ohashi outraced American Alex Walsh to the wall in the women’s 200m individual medley. Her time was 2:08:52 — 13 hundredths of a second ahead of Walsh. American Kate Douglass won the bronze medal.
–The world’s top two men’s tennis players, Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Daniil Medvedev of ROC, advanced to the quarterfinals. No. 3 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece was eliminated in three sets by Ugo Humbert of France.
–Field Level Media