Katie Ledecky took home her second gold medal at Rio 2016 with a win in the 200m freestyle on Tuesday.
The 19-year-old now has three medals overall and is poised to sweep the pool in the freestyle events with just the 800m distance left.
The American was able to hold off world record holder Sarah Sjostrom down the stretch, keeping her quest for five medals at Rio alive, and overcoming her toughest test in the individual events.
''That was a really tough race and it hurt really badly,'' Ledecky said. ''I'm pretty sure it's the closest I've come to throwing up in the middle of a race. I'm just so glad I got my hand on the wall first and it was all worth it.''
''The 200 is a much more stressful race than the 400 and 800, and it always just feels good when it's over,'' she said. ''I took it out pretty fast and kind of forced everybody to try to do that. Once I was ahead I knew I wasn't going to let it out of my hands. I knew I wasn't going to be able to see most of the field on the last 50, so I just had to dig deep.''
The 800m free final takes place on Friday, but before that she'll anchor the 4x200m freestyle relay team on Wednesday.