Iron-man Bobby Finke and the U.S. women's medley relay team shattered world records in golden performances as the Olympic swim meet ended in exhilarating fashion on Sunday with the Americans on top again.
Floridian Finke took down Sun Yang's 12-year 1,500m world record as he retained the gold medal in the lung-busting event before the American women smashed their previous world mark for gold in the medley relay.
The golds saw the Americans finish with eight at the top of the swimming medal table, one more than second-placed Australia whose ambitions of ruling the Olympic pool for the first time since Melbourne 1956 were quashed.
It was by no means an American shut-out, though, with the U.S. men's medley relay team suffering their first defeat ever at Olympics meets dating back to the 1960 Rome Games in a febrile atmosphere at La Defense Arena. China, anchored by the human missile Pan Zhanle, took the gold ahead of the U.S. team, whose talisman Caeleb Dressel took his first minor medal from a previously uniform set of nine golds.
"I feel like for a team USA, the expectation is gold," said Dressel who swam the third butterfly leg of the relay.
"That's traditionally what we strive for and I don't think that changes any Olympic cycle.
"That was a close race, came down to the wire, and they had four great splits, we had four great splits, and they were faster, simple
as that." Sarah Sjostrom finished the Games on a huge high after claiming the women's 50m freestyle in 23.71 seconds, the evergreen Swede's two-gold haul surpassing all returns at her previous four Games.
"This was definitely my best (Olympics)," said the 30-year-old, who took the first of her three golds at Rio 2016.
"I'm definitely going to continue swimming for many years, but I mean, how can I top this ever?"
