Las Vegas’ Cody Miller wins Olympic gold on relay team
Cody Miller finished his 2016 Rio Games as a part of Olympic history.
The Las Vegas resident and Palo Verde High School product won gold swimming the breaststroke leg of the United States’ 4×100 medley relay, in what might have been the final Olympic race of Michael Phelps’ storied career.
Miller, who won bronze in the 100-meter breaststroke earlier in Rio, helped the U.S. set an Olympic record with a time of 3:27.95.
He entered the water second for the Americans after Ryan Murphy began the race with a world-record 51.85 second split in the backstroke. Miller was in second by the time he handed the race to Phelps after a 59.03 split, though, because Adam Peaty of Great Britain swam a world-record 56.59 split in the breaststroke.
Phelps put the U.S. back ahead in the butterfly, and Nathan Adrian closed it out in the freestyle. It’s the first gold medal of Cody Miller’s career, but it was the 23rd for Phelps.
Great Britain won the silver and Australia won the bronze.
After the race, Phelps pulled his arms around his three teammates and told them it was an honor to race with them, his Olympic career likely finished.
That didn’t stop Adrian from yelling at him to come back in four years.