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Michael Phelps captured his 23rd and final Olympic gold medal on Saturday as the United States sealed a week of dominance in the pool by winning the men's and women's medley relays.
Denmark's Pernille Blume beat a field of world and Olympic champions to take gold in the women's 50 freestyle and Italy's Gregorio Paltrinieri won the men's 1,500 freestyle after dominating almost from the start.
But it was Phelps who stole the show yet again when he sprang from the block to swim the butterfly leg of the 4x100 medley relay, recapturing the lead from Britain and setting up yet another US victory, after Ryan Murphy had led off by breaking the world backstroke record.
Elaine Thompson inherited the mantle of Olympic 100 metres champion from fellow Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce on Saturday but Mo Farah simply refused to relinquish his 10,000m crown as the Briton recovered from a fall to retain his title.
Check out the gold medallists on Day 8 of the Rio Olympics:
Puig secures Puerto Rico's first gold medal
Monica Puig scored the upset of her career and delivered Puerto Rico its first Olympics gold medal on Saturday, overpowering Germany's Angelique Kerber to win the women's singles tennis competition.
Puig, cheered on by fans in Rio de Janeiro who waved Puerto Rican flags and shouted "Si, se puede" ("Yes, you can") throughout her hard-fought three-set victory, beat the Australian Open champion 6-4, 4-6, 6-1.
With the remarkable victory, Puig reached several milestones in one fell swoop. She is the first gold medallist for Puerto Rico, the Caribbean island and US territory that fields its own Olympic team at each Games.
She also became the first woman to win a medal representing Puerto Rico, whose male athletes had captured eight medals at past games, mostly in boxing.
US wins men's medley relay, golden send-off for Phelps
The United States won the men's 4x100 meters medley relay on Saturday after Ryan Murphy had given them a world record start that propelled Michael Phelps to a 23rd gold medal in his final Olympic race.
Britain took the silver medal and Australia bronze.
Phelps, who swam the third butterfly leg, ends the most successful Olympic career of all time with 23 golds, three silver and two bronze.
Murphy broke the world record for the 100 backstroke in the leadoff, clocking 51.85 seconds to eclipse the 51.94 that compatriot Aaron Peirsol swam in 2009.
Britain's Olympic champion Adam Peaty then swam the breaststroke leg in a scorching 56.59 seconds to move his team up from sixth to first place, with Cody Miller touching second for the U.S. at half-way.
A huge roar went up when Phelps hit the water for the butterfly and then caught and overhauled Britain's James Guy to hand a 0.41 second cushion to Nathan Adrian.
The Americans finished in three minutes, 27.95 seconds, an Olympic record, to win by 1.29 seconds.
Farah roars to another 10,000m title
Britain's Mo Farah shrugged off an early fall to cement his place in the pantheon of distance greats by retaining his Olympic 10,000 metres title with a blistering final lap on Saturday.
Farah ran a superb tactical race before obliterating the opposition in the final stretch to became the first British runner to win three Olympic titles. He is now the favourite to add a fourth in the 5,000m next week.
Should the 33-year-old manage it he would emulate Finnish great Lasse Viren, currently the only man to complete the distance "double double", by retaining the Olympic 5,000 and 10,000m titles.
He has already achieved the feat in the world championships, with three in a row in the 5,000m and two over 10,000m.
Jamaica's Thompson wins women's 100m gold
Elaine Thompson of Jamaica won the women's 100 meters sprint in a time of 10.71 seconds. Tori Bowie of the United States finished second to take silver, while Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica won bronze.
The 24-year-old was second slowest out of the blocks but powered away from the field over the last 50 meters to claim her first major individual title in 10.71 seconds, one hundredth of a second outside her personal best.
Manuel anchors medley team to 1,000th US gold
Simone Manuel anchored the US women's 4x100 meters medley relay team to the 1,000th gold medal in her country's summer Olympic history on Saturday, and the second of her career.
Australia won the silver, with Cate Campbell touching out just 0.01 ahead of bronze medalists Denmark.
The United States were the defending champions and Manuel's swim came about 40 minutes after she won silver in the 50 freestyle, an event she called a 'work in progress'.
Had she won that, and she missed out by just 0.02, the landmark gold would have been hers alone but she was happy that was not the case.
American Henderson snatches long jump gold
Jeff Henderson of the United States won gold in the men's long jump on Saturday, leaping 8.38 meters to snatch the title in the last round.
His win, edging out South Africa's Luvo Manyonga in the last round of the competition, gives the United States its 22nd long jump gold medal.
"It feels good to be in that category, to win that many medals. It feels surreal right now," Henderson told reporters at a news conference alongside Manyonga and dethroned London 2012 champion Greg Rutherford of Britain who took bronze.
Swimming: Italy's Paltrinieri wins 1,500m freestyle
Gregorio Paltrinieri of Italy won the Olympic gold medal in the 1,500 meters freestyle on Saturday after dominating throughout the race with a relentless display of technique and endurance in the longest event in the pool.
Connor Jaeger of the United States took the silver, and Italy's Gabriele Detti won bronze after overhauling Jordan Wilimovsky of the US in the closing stages. But the winner never seemed in doubt after world champion Paltrinieri took the lead at 150 meters and wore down the rest of the field.
Having been on track through most of the race to beat the world record, he eased off slightly to clock 14 minutes, 34.57 seconds, 3.55 seconds outside the mark of 14:31.02 set by Chinese swimmer Sun Yang in London in 2012.
The winning margin was 4.91 seconds.
Belarussian Hancharou wins men's Trampoline gold
Belarussia's Uladzislau Hancharou upstaged world champion Gao Lei and 2012 Olympic gold medallist Dong Dong to soar to victory in trampoline gymnastics at the Rio Games on Saturday.
Hancharou won Belarus' second gold of these Games with a score of 61.745.
Dong, who was bidding to become the first man to win back-to-back trampoline Olympic golds, settled for silver with 60.535 while Gao won bronze.
Rossetti racks up third shooting gold for Italy
Young Italian Gabriele Rossetti gave his country its third gold medal in Olympic shooting with a perfect score in the men's skeet event on Saturday.
The compact 21-year-old had perfect 16s in the semi-final and final, defeating 26-year-old Marcus Svensson of Sweden by just one shot.
Crowd favorite Abdullah Al-Rashidi, a Kuwaiti competing under the Olympic flag won the bronze, his first medal in six Olympic Games.
German Reitz wins men's 25m rapid-fire pistol gold
Germany clinched its third Olympic shooting title in as many days on Saturday as police officer Christian Reitz won the gold medal in the 25 meter rapid fire pistol event.
Upon winning his first gold in three Olympics, the 29-year-old Reitz walked across the range to hug fellow officer and training partner Jean Quiquampoix of France, who won the silver after a thrilling shoot-off with bronze medalist Li Yuehong of China.
In the eight rounds of five shots in quick succession, the world-record holding Reitz proved to be a reliably steady shot, never missing more than one target in each round. His win reinforces Germany's dominance in rapid-fire shooting, with five golds and nine medals, more than any other country.
German Harting takes men's discus gold
German Christoph Harting snatched victory with his last throw, four years after his brother Robert took the title in London.
Harting found 68.37 meters and edged ahead of silver medallist Piotr Malachowski of Poland (67.55m) and countryman Daniel Jasinski (67.05m), who won bronze.
Rowing: Men's single sculls
At the Olympic rowing regatta on Saturday, Mahe Drysdale of New Zealand and Croatia's Damir Martin crossed the line at the same time as Martin appeared pull past the defending champion.
After moments of confusion, with even the two rowers asking each other who had won, the gold was awarded to Mahe in a photo-finish. Martin generously applauded him.
The Czech Republic’s Ond?ej Synek won bronze.
In the women's single sculls, the day’s fourth final, favorite Kimberley Brennan of Australia comfortably won the gold, leading from the start to add the gold to the bronze she claimed in London.
Gevvie Stone of the USA won silver while Duan Jingli of China took home the bronze medal.
In the women’s coxed eight, US women's eight team crossed the finish line, winning the United States’ only gold in the regatta.
It was a second Olympic gold for Meghan Musnicki and Elle Logan, the only two members of the crew who competed in the London 2012 Games.
The British team came good in the last stretch to claim silver and Romania made a late surge to take bronze.
The grand finale of the regatta, the men’s eight,Britain beat favourites Germany. They led all the way, even though the Germans closed the gap toward the end. The Netherlands took bronze.
Britain beat US to cycling gold in women's team pursuit
Britain crushed their American rivals to win the women's track cycling pursuit title in another world record time as the two fastest teams locked horns for gold at the Olympics on Saturday with the expected close battle ending in a romp.
The quartet of Laura Trott, Katie Archibald, Elinor Barker and Joanna Rowsell-Shand cranked up the pace to devastating effect, winning in 4:10.236 -- nearly two seconds quicker than the world record they set in the heats.
Sarah Hammer's US team had thrown down the gauntlet with a world record of their own in the morning heats only to see Britain respond almost immediately.
And they were no match for the British in the final as the U.S. wait for a gold in Olympic women's track cycling goes on.
Britain won by just over two seconds to match the feat of the Bradley Wiggins-inspired men's team who beat Australia to win gold on Friday, also in a world record time
Canada secured only its second Olympic medal in women's track cycling, beating New Zealand for bronze.
Cycling: Flying Dutchwoman Ligtlee wins keirin gold
Dutch rider Elis Ligtlee won gold in the track cycling women's keirin on Saturday, edging out Britain's Rebecca James.
Australian Anna Meares took the bronze while world champion Kristina Voegel of Germany was out of the medals.
Meares, an 11-times world champion, has now won a medal in four consecutive Olympics.
Late results on Day 7...
Schooling denies Phelps a 23rd
Joseph Schooling won the men's 100 metres butterfly final on Friday to secure Singapore's first Olympic gold medal and deny Michael Phelps a 23rd in the last individual race of the American's extraordinary career.
Phelps, the defending champion and world record holder who is heading into retirement -- again -- after Rio, finished second in a three-way dead heat with two of his greatest rivals -- South Africa's Chad Le Clos and Hungary's Laszlo Cseh.
Astonishingly, all three touched out in 51.14 seconds, behind Schooling's Olympic record 50.39 in the second dead-heat in a final in two days.
Ledecky smashes 800m record to claim freestyle treble
Katie Ledecky of the United States finally succumbed to her emotions on the podium after destroying the field in the 800 metres freestyle on Friday and smashing her own world record to complete a rare Olympic swimming treble.
Ledecky led from the start and inexorably stretched out the gap over her opponents to finish in eight minutes, 4.79 seconds, beating her previous mark of 8:06.68 set in Austin, Texas in January.
Britain's Jazz Carlin won her second silver medal in 8:16.17, and Boglarka Kapas of Hungary took the bronze.
Ledecky, defending Olympic champion at the distance, added to her golds earlier in the week in the 200 and 400 freestyle and the 4x200 freestyle relay, plus a silver in the 4x100 relay.
The only previous woman to win the 200, 400 and 800 freestyle at the same Games was American Debbie Meyer in 1968.
DiRado bows out with backstroke gold
Maya DiRado of the United States won the women's 200 metres backstroke in her final race before quitting swimming on Friday, coming from behind to deny Katinka Hosszu a fourth gold medal at the Rio Olympics.
The American reeled in the 'Iron Lady' from Hungary in the last 50 metres, the pair swimming neck and neck in adjacent lanes before DiRado touched first to win by six-hundredths of a second.
Canada's Hilary Caldwell won bronze.
Ervin wins gold 16 years after his first
Anthony Ervin of the United States reclaimed the mantle of fastest man in the water on Friday by taking the Olympic 50 metres freestyle gold medal 16 years after he first won it, and by the slimmest of margins.
France's Florent Manaudou, the defending champion, finished second and just 0.01 seconds behind the 35-year-old veteran, who won in 21.40 seconds in a splash and dash down the pool.
Nathan Adrian of the United States took the bronze in the shortest and fastest race on the programme. He also finished third in the 100 freestyle on Wednesday.
Carter denies Adams to win gold in shot put
Michelle Carter produced the throw of her life with her last attempt to deprive New Zealander Valerie Adams a piece of Olympic history on Friday as the American won the women's shot put to close out a memorable first day of athletics in Rio.
Carter heaved an American record 20.63 metres to snatch gold from Adams, who had been seeking to become the first woman to win three straight Olympic titles in an individual athletics event. She took silver with 20.42m.
Spain's Nadal and Lopez win gold in men's doubles
Rafael Nadal and Marc Lopez of Spain won the Olympic men's doubles tennis title on Friday, beating Romania's Florin Mergea and Horia Tecau to secure their country's third gold medal of the Rio Games.
Nadal and Lopez defeated the Romanians 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 while American duo Steve Johnson and Jack Sock beat Canada's Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil 6-2, 6-4 to clinch bronze.