Rice leads Australia to 800 free relay gold

[August 14, 2008]  BEIJING (AP) -- Stephanie Rice has led Australia to a gold medal in the women's 800-meter freestyle relay at the Beijing Olympics, smashing the world record by nearly 6 seconds.

Rice, Bronte Barratt, Kylie Palmer and Linda Mackenzie touched in 7 minutes, 44.31 seconds Thursday, lowering the old mark of 7:50.09 set by the U.S. at last year's world championships in Australia.

Rice earned her third gold medal of these games, having swept both individual medleys with world-record times.

The Chinese team of Yang Yu, Zhu Qianwei, Tan Miao and Pang Jiaying took the silver in 7:45.93.

The U.S. team of Allison Schmitt, Natalie Coughlin, Caroline Burckle and Katie Hoff earned the bronze in 7:46.33, the first time the Americans have lost the event since it began in 1996.

[Associated Press]

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