An American has stunned a former world record holder to win her first career gold medal.
Kate Douglass beat out Tatjana Smith — the reigning world champion and Olympic gold medalist — at the 200 meter breaststroke on Thursday afternoon for gold by 0.36 seconds. Douglass' time of 2:19.44 set an American record and is her personal best.
Smith had been the prohibitive, -225 favorite heading into the preliminary heats. That's before Douglass startled her in the semifinals, beating her out by 0.20 of a second.
In that semifinals, Douglass coasted to a victory, keeping even strokes throughout, even down the stretch. Meanwhile, Smith — when she realized she was behind — became frantic, dramatically speeding up her time between strokes, but to no avail.
The foreshadowing from that semifinals heat didn't affect the odds market all that much, on account of Smith's elite history. Douglass entered the race as a roughly +130 underdog, meaning a $1,000 wager would win $1,300. Smith was as long as -150 to win her third Olympic gold medal. The South African had earlier won the gold in the 100m breaststroke.
As the race began, both swimmers quickly pulled ahead of the pack. At the 100m mark, Douglass was ahead and just needed to hold to win the U.S. its first gold medal in this event since 2012.
At the 150m wall, Douglass was ahead by a hair. Then, off the wall, it became clear that it was Douglass' race to lose.
With a dolphin kick that used all 15m, Douglass pulled far ahead of Smith and en route to gold.
The win adds to the U.S.' leading Olympic medal tally of 37, including nine golds. The next best country is France with 27 medals, then China with 24.
