On Wednesday morning, redshirt sophomore swimmer Cierra Runge had the biggest race of her life, swimming the anchor leg in the prelims of the 4x200-meter freestyle relay at the 2016 Olympic Games. Mere hours later, her contribution in the preliminaries did not go unnoticed in the final, where four of her United States teammates, building on the solid race Runge swam in prelims, charged to victory with a time of 7:43.03.
Runge, along with Missy Franklin, Melanie Margalis and Allison Schmitt, won their preliminary heat and posted the top overall heat time of 7:47.77 over Australia and China. In the final, Schmitt, Leah Smith, Maya DiRado, and Katie Ledecky came from behind to best Australia and Canada for the gold medal in epic fashion.
Because all competitors on the top three swimming relays at the Olympics are rewarded with medals, Runge becomes the first Olympic gold medalist for Wisconsin since fellow swimmer Carly Piper (USA) and rower Beau Hoopman (USA) in 2004.
The Cochranville, Pennsylvania native is a transfer from the University of California-Berkeley and will officially begin her Badgers career in the fall, after both an Olympic gold medal this summer and multiple NCAA records while at Cal.
