Olivia Smoliga poses with her medal at FINA World Swimming Championships on Dec. 15, 2018 in Hangzhou, China.
Several of Team USA’s Olympic champions added to their medal collections on Day 5 of the FINA Short Course World Championships in Hanghzou, China, on Saturday, giving the U.S. another four individual medals plus two more in relay events.
The meet, which features more than 960 swimmers from 178 countries, wraps up on Sunday.
Olympic gold medalists Melanie Margalis and Kathleen Baker took silver and bronze, respectively, in the women’s 200-meter individual medley. It was a close race between both women and eventual winner Katinka Hosszu of Hungary, who touched in 2 minutes, 3.25 seconds to win the event for the third time in a row. Margalis finished in a U.S.-record time of 2:04.62 and Baker, who led at the halfway point, finished in 2:05.64.
Fellow Olympic champion Olivia Smoliga captured the gold medal in the women’s 50-meter backstroke to go along with her gold in the 100 backstroke earlier in the meet. She also set an American record with her time of 25.88 seconds and was followed by a pair of Australian swimmers, Caroline Pilhatsch and Holly Barratt, who finished in 25.99 and 26.04 to take silver and bronze, respectively.
Katie Meili, another Olympic gold medalist, kept it going for the U.S. women, winning the silver medal in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:03.63. She was just off the gold-medal spot with Jamaica’s Alia Atkinson holding off her charge to win in 1:03.51. Australia’s Jessica Hansen took the bronze in 1:04.61.
Team USA also took silver in both the relays contested on Saturday. Leah Smith, Mallory Comerford, Margalis and Emily Brown took second in the women’s 4x200 freestyle, with a time of 7:35.30 behind China in 7:34.08.
Ryan Murphy, Michael Andrew, Caeleb Dressel and Ryan Held finished behind Russia (1:30.54) for silver in the men’s 4x50 medley relay to start off the evening’s finals with a time of 1:30.90, also a U.S. record.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
