Michael Phelps won his 19th Olympic gold medal with a su­perb per­for­mance in the men's 4x100m freestyle on Sun­day night as three world records fell at the Olympic Aquat­ics Sta­di­um.

On a fan­tas­tic night of ac­tion in the pool the most dra­mat­ic race was saved un­til last as the most dec­o­rat­ed Olympian in his­to­ry made his ea­ger­ly await­ed de­but at his fifth Games.

Phelps record­ed a storm­ing 47.12 sec­ond leg to in­spire the USA re­lay side that in­clud­ed Caeleb Dres­sel, Ryan Held and Nathan Adri­an. Recog­nis­ing that a 23rd Olympic medal was in his grasp, he banged on his lane blocks as the USA held off France in a time of 3:09.92.

Phelps said the USA want­ed to make up for the dis­ap­point­ment of fin­ish­ing sec­ond in the same race at Lon­don 2012.

"We want­ed that race back so bad­ly. I played that race (the Lon­don 2012 race) for the guys in the room the oth­er day. In 2008 we had a great one, in 2012 we fell off a lit­tle bit. My last 4x100 re­lay, it feels damn good to get a win. It was the fastest 100m free of my ca­reer. These guys are awe­some, they will be there in four years–you got this, I am out."

Swe­den's Sarah Sjostrom had set the ball rolling with a new 100m women's but­ter­fly mark, smash­ing her own record in 55.48 sec­onds to fin­ish ahead of im­pres­sive 16-year-old Pen­ny Olek­si­ak of Cana­da.

"The feel­ing is to­tal­ly crazy. I didn't re­alise it was a world record. I knew I was the big favourite," said Sjostrom. "I was un­der pres­sure, so I tried to fo­cus on no dis­as­ters. Be­fore the start I said to my­self, it's just a pool. It's noth­ing. I know what to do. I was not so ner­vous; I was in a good mood to­day. I knew the hun­dred me­tres but­ter­fly was my big chance."

Adam Peaty pro­duced a dom­i­nant per­for­mance in the men's 100m breast­stroke, break­ing the world record for the sec­ond time to win Great Britain's first Olympic men's swim­ming gold for 28 years in a time of 57.13.

Katie Ledecky of the USA, who is un­beat­en in in­ter­na­tion­al in­di­vid­ual com­pe­ti­tion, won the 400m freestyle in 3:56.46, near­ly two sec­onds faster than her own two-year-old world record.

"3:56 was the goal I set af­ter Barcelona 2013 so it feels re­al­ly good."