Olympics-Swimming-Sjostrom adds 50m freestyle gold to 100m title

By Alan Baldwin

PARIS (Reuters) - Sweden's world record holder Sarah Sjostrom completed a remarkable freestyle sprint double by adding the women's 50 metres gold to her 100m title in her fifth Games at the Paris Olympics on Sunday.

Australia's Meg Harris, a gold medallist in the 4x100m free relay, took the silver and China's Zhang Yufei secured the bronze for her fifth medal of the Games and ninth of her career.

"I never thought I would win two golds on my fifth Olympics. It's unbelievable," said Sjostrom, who will be 31 later in August.

"This is the peak of my career for sure.

"I'm definitely going to continue swimming for many years, but I mean, how can I top this ever?," she asked.

The Swede, whose 100m win was almost accidental after she made a late decision to enter, has defied the years by swimming as well as ever in a Games with few world records and where times have mattered less than tactics and mental strength.

She smashed Hungarian Katinka Hosszu's Olympic record in the semi-finals, where she was the only swimmer under 24 seconds as she went 23.66.

Sjostrom could not match that time in Sunday's "splash and dash" at the La Defense Arena, touching the wall in 23.71 after the single length thrash down the pool and then raising two fingers in triumph.

"I knew before the race also that even if I do a few mistakes, I have a really high level," she said. "I was going in with the confidence that I can continue doing under 24 seconds any day, any time of the day."

Harris finished 0.26 behind her, the only other woman under 24 seconds, and Zhang was 0.49 off the Sjostrom's pace.

Sjostrom, silver medallist in the 50m at Tokyo three years ago - and after breaking her elbow before those Games, now has six individual medals from the last three Olympics -- three golds, two silvers and a bronze.

That number pales in comparison to the 23 individual medals she has won at world championships, plus two relays.

All three of Sunday's medallists could add to their final tallies in the later 4x100m medley relay with Sjostrom and Zhang named in their countries' lineups while Harris swam in the qualifiers.

(Additional reporting by Rohith Nair, Editing by Hugh Lawson)