RIO DE JANEIRO — It was closing night Friday for the Maryland double feature that's done bang-up business at the Olympic Aquatics Center.
First up, Baltimore's Michael Phelps sought his fourth consecutive gold medal in the 100-meter butterfly final, the last individual race of his 16-year Olympic career.
A few minutes later, Bethesda's Katie Ledecky climbed her starting block for the 800 freestyle final, her last race of the 2016 Games and one in which she was expected to annihilate her world record.
Ledecky followed through, winning in 8 minutes, 4.79 second to take her fourth gold medal and fifth medal overall of these Olympics. She won by nearly 12 seconds, leaving her top rivals half a pool behind.
Phelps, however, started too slowly, hitting the 50-meter turn in sixth place. He rallied but did not have enough in his legs to catch 21-year-old Joseph Schooling of Singapore, who won in an Olympic-record time of 50.39 seconds. Phelps finished in 51.14 seconds and in a three-way tie for silver with Chad le Clos of South Africa and Laszlo Cseh of Hungary.
"It's what I had," Phelps said. "It's been a really long week, and I knew this was going to be a tough one."
It was the first of his five races this week in which he didn't win a gold medal. But he seemed less distraught than he might have in previous years, grinning his way through a postrace interview and wrapping Maya DiRado in a bear hug after her stirring rally to win gold in the 200 backstroke.
"I'm me, so I'm going to be hard on myself a little bit, because I don't like to lose," he said. "But I'm accepting it. I'm accepting the race that I had tonight."
Phelps pushed his career total to 27 medals. He and Ledecky, who grew up 45 minutes apart in different Maryland suburbs, have totaled 10 medals at these games, eight of them gold.
Phelps will have a chance to add another Saturday in the 4x100 medley relay, the swim he says will be the last of his career.
For the first time since Sunday, he had only one race to swim. And he needed the whole day to rest after a grueling Thursday slate that included his victory in the 200 individual medley and his preliminary and semifinal swims in the 100 butterfly.
His butterfly semifinal started about 30 minutes after his brilliant swim in the 200 IM, and he also had to stand through a medal ceremony just before the race.
The same double had racked his 31-year-old body at U.S. Olympic trials. But he got through this one in good order, qualifying fifth for the butterfly final despite a sluggish start over the first 50 meters.
"I know it seemed counterintuitive, but he didn't have to push that too hard," coach Bob Bowman said.
Nonetheless, the 100 butterfly set up as one of his most difficult events of the week.
It again pitted Phelps against his young rival, le Clos, who was looking for revenge after what he called "the worst performance of my career" in the 200 butterfly final.