Men's Swimmer Ryan Lochte Strikes Gold in Athens
Tuesday, August 17, 2004 | Men's Swimming & Diving
Junior Ryan Lochte (Daytona Beach, Fla.) captured the gold medal in the men's 4 x 200 freestyle relay in an American Record time of 7:07.33 at the Olympic Aquatic Centre Tuesday evening.
Lochte swam the second leg of the U.S. relay in the preliminaries where he posted a personal best time of 1:47.10, which also gave him the fastest split of all the competitors in preliminary competition. In the finals, Lochte was second in the pool again where he recorded a time of 1:47.5 to earn his first career Olympic medal in his first career Olympic Games.
The gold medal performance of Lochte gives athletes with ties to the University of Florida a total of two gold medals to date in the 2004 Summer Games.
Former Gator swimmer Carlos Jayme (Brazil) also competed in the event, however his Brazilian team placed ninth in the preliminaries and did not participate in the final race. Jayme swam the third leg for the Brazilians with a split of 1:51.30. For Jayme, this was his second event in the 2004 Games and his second career Olympic Games (2000 and 2004).
-UF-
