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Rio Olympics: Ryan Murphy, Lilly King swim for records, USA owns podium

By Alex Butler
Lilly King of the United States celebrates after she wins the gold medal with an Olympic record time of 1:04.93 in the Women's 100m breaststroke at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 8, 2016. Photo by Matthew Healey/UPI
1 of 24 | Lilly King of the United States celebrates after she wins the gold medal with an Olympic record time of 1:04.93 in the Women's 100m breaststroke at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 8, 2016. Photo by Matthew Healey/UPI | License Photo

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Team USA swimming owns the pool podium.

The Americans cleaned up in swimming events Monday in Rio de Janeiro, earning six medals. Team USA leads all countries with 19 total medals in Rio, compared to 13 for China and 10 for Japan. The Americans earned a total of seven medals Monday in the Summer Games.

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Ryan Murphy and Lilly King headlined the swimming stars by setting Olympic records in the 100-meter backstroke and 100-meter breaststroke, respectively. Murphy swam the event in 51.97, beating out China's Jiayu Xu. Team USA's David Plummer won the bronze medal for the event.

Murphy's victory kept a United States gold medal streak in the event alive, dating back to the 1996 games in Atlanta.

King held off Russia's Yulia Efimova with a time of 1:04.93 in the breaststroke. Team USA's Katie Meili earned a bronze medal in that event.

"It's incredible, winning the gold medal and knowing I did it clean," King told ESPN's Bonnie D. Ford after the victory.

Efimova has been banned for doping twice, but was cleared to participate.

Conor Dwyer picked up yet another bronze medal after being bested by China's Yan Sun and Chad Le Clos of South Africa in the men's 200-meter freestyle. Kathleen Baker won a silver medal for Team USA, placing second in the women's 100-meter backstroke. Hungary's Katinka Hosszu won the gold medal and Canada's Kylie Masse won bronze in that event.

RUNDOWN IN RIO

The United States enforced its will once again Monday on the basketball court. The women's team demolished Spain 103-63 in Game 4 of Group B preliminary play. Paul George scored 20 points and had nine assists off of the bench for the men's team in a 113-69 thumping of Venezuela. Jimmy Butler had 17 points and Kevin Durant scored 16 points in the victory.

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"Basically the first thing we talked about was guard without fouling," Butler told USA Today's Jeff Zillgitt after the game. "We used our hands a little bit too much, bailing them out on a lot of their baskets. We just have to get off to a better, faster start, which we know. When we pick it up, we're really hard to match up with. The way we play defense, if we guard like that for 40 straight minutes, we'll be in a great position to win."

American men's beach volleyball duo Casey Patterson and Jake Gibb fell to Austria's Robin Seidl and Alexander Huber in straight sets in the second round of pool play.

In men's synchronized 10-meter diving, American's David Boudia and Steele Johnson won silver, falling to China's Aisen Chen and Yue Lin. Great Britain's Tom Daley and Daniel Goodfellow earned bronze medals.

Team USA's women's field hockey team won match four of Pool B play with a 2-1 victory against Australia.

Men's single sculls rowing quarterfinals begin at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday. Men's singles tennis begins at 10 a.m. in round two play. The women's basketball tournament resumes at 11:15 a.m. Swimming resumes at 12:02 p.m. and the men's basketball tournament kicks off Group B play at 1:15 p.m. The United States Women's National Team kicks off in soccer at 6 p.m. against Colombia.

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