Rio Olympics 2016 medal tally: USA continue to dominate after day 5, China second

Rio de Janeiro: Katie Ledecky swam a sensational anchor leg to claim her third gold medal of the Rio Olympics as the United States won the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay on Wednesday, extending their lead at the top of the medals tally. Ledecky overhauled Australia’s Tamsin Cook to take her team home in 7 minutes 43.03 seconds, beating the Aussies into second place with Canada third. [caption id=“attachment_2949284” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The United States team hold up their gold medals after winning the women’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay. AP[/caption] China’s Ding Ning won the women’s Olympic table tennis title on day five, beating her team boss Li Xiaoxia to avenge the bitter defeat she suffered to her compatriot in London 2012. Four years after losing the title in acrimonious circumstances when she became embroiled in a row with the referee, Ding, nicknamed ‘big baby’, finally won the gold she had hankered after so dearly. Elsewhere, beefy Kazakh swimmer Dmitriy Balandin put the former Soviet state on the Olympic map by winning his country’s first gold medal in the sport. The 21-year-old, who resembles Dolph Lundgren’s character Ivan Drago in the movie Rocky IV, roared home from lane eight to win the men’s 200m breaststroke title, surprising even himself. “It hasn’t sunk in yet that I’m an Olympic champion,” Balandin told reporters in Rio. At the end of day five, United States topped the medals tally with 32 medals (11 Gold, 11 Silver, 10 Bronze), followed by China on 23 (10 Gold, 5 Silver, 8 Bronze). Japan on 18 medals (6 Gold, 1 Silver, 11 Bronze) and Australia on 12 medals (5 Gold, 2 Silver, 5 Bronze) overtook Hungary on 7 medals (5 Gold, 1 Silver, 1 Bronze) to claim the third and fourth spot respectively. Here is the full Rio Olympics medal tally at the end of day five of the Games:

Click here for the LIVE medal tally With inputs from AFP