The man to beat in the 1500m men’s freestyle is Bobby Finke.
The 24-year-old is now a three-time Olympic gold medalist after defending his title in the event on Sunday.
He also did it in grand style by setting a world record of 14:30.67, beating the previous record by just 0.35 seconds.
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It’s the seventh gold medal for Americans in the swimming pool, and the 26th overall – it was a wire-to-wire victory for Finke.
The seven golds ties the USA with Australia for the most in swimming, although they’ve had a much higher success rate, as they’ve earned just 17 total medals.
Finke failed to go back-to-back in the 800m free earlier in the Games, settling for the silver by just over half a second. He admitted after his world record he was “kind of p—ed” about the silver, perhaps fueling his fire for Sunday.
Finke held a half-a-second lead at the midway point and was ahead of world record pace, but Italian Gregorio Paltrinieri. But Finke turned on the jets, growing his lead to 1.3 seconds with 500 meters to go, and getting over two seconds ahead of the record pace.
Finke eventually lost his big lead on the world record, but the Italian was never able to catch up (at a point, Paltrinieri, too, was ahead of record pace).
Finke is the third American to win gold on Sunday, joining Scottie Scheffler on the golf course and cyclist Kristen Faulkner.
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