She broke the world record in the 100-meter breaststroke last year and has swum fast enough to qualify for four events at the United States Olympic trials.
The improvement, allied to Muffat's record and Pellegrini's finishing position, underlines that this was a medal won rather than a title lost, although the 23-year-old had swum faster at the British Trials in March.
He had swum faster in the second half of the race something exceedingly rare in top-level swimming and an indication of strategic error and felt that he had too much unused energy left at the end of the race.
He has swum 8 of the 11 fastest times in history in that race.
"The rapid increase and two subsequent rapid decreases in her speed, combined with the already fast pace, still leave me skeptical of her swim's authenticity," said Malinak, a geotechnical engineer in Seattle, who has swum around Manhattan.
Indeed, despite collecting gold medals in this event at all the major competitions between 2001 and 2004, Mr Thorpe has never swum faster than in 2001.
"I had swum really fast at a meet in Marseille.
Lezak had swum the fastest of the four, at 47.86, but lost hold of the silver medal because van den Hoogenband tracked him down with an astonishing 46.79.
The Edinburgh-born athlete had mixed feelings, disappointment at just missing out countered by the fact he had never swum faster in the four-length event, with his specialist 400m individual medley to come on Sunday.
But it is more important that, as she points out in her focused approach to Rio, "I've swum the third fastest time in the world this year in the 50m free".
