United States Wins 1,000th Olympic Gold Medal

The United States won its 1,000th Olympic gold medal on Saturday when the American women swimmers won the 4x100 meter medley relay at the Rio Games.

The honor of reaching the milestone was shared by Kathleen Baker, Lilly King, Dan Vollmer and Simone Manuel getting to the wall first ahead of arch-rivals Australia.

The U.S. had arrived in Rio with 977 gold medals according to Olympstats.com and had sat on 998 for much of the day until Jeff Henderson put them on the brink with victory in the long jump.

Sprinter Tori Bowie nearly took the U.S. over the top in the 100 meters but the track and field athlete was beaten into second, leaving it up to the swimmers to complete the feat.

It the U.S. women had not captured the landmark medal, Michael Phelps and the men’s 4x100 medley relay squad would have done so, the quartet winning gold in the very next event in the pool.

While some Olympic historians have disputed the number of golds the U.S. has won, the United States Olympic Committee said that the women’s victory would count as the country’s 1,000th.

(Reporting by Steve Keating. Editing by: Ossian Shine/John O’Brien)