On the first day of the swimming competition at the 2012 Olympics in London, Franklin won a bronze medal in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay with Jessica Hardy, Lia Neal, and Allison Schmitt, with the U.S. team finishing behind Australia and the Netherlands. Swimming the lead-off leg, Franklin had a personal best of 53.52 seconds and the team finished with a total time of 3:34.24, an American record. Franklin's first leg in the relay was also the fastest lead-off of the field. In her first individual event on the third day of the swimming competition, the 100-meter backstroke, Franklin won the gold medal with a time of 58.33 seconds, beating her own national record. Her win in the backstroke came less than fifteen minutes after completing the 200-meter freestyle semi-finals, where she qualified for the final. The following day, Franklin competed in the 200-meter freestyle and placed fourth in the final with a time of 1:55.82, one one-hundredth of a second behind third-place finisher Bronte Barratt. A day after the 200-meter freestyle, Franklin won her third medal of the meet, a gold, in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay with Dana Vollmer, Shannon Vreeland and Allison Schmitt. Swimming the lead-off leg, Franklin posted a time of 1:55.96 and the U.S. team finished with a time of 7:42.92, a new American record. A day after completing the relay, Franklin competed in her third individual event, 100-meter freestyle. In the final, Franklin placed fifth with a time of 53.64 seconds. Franklin was able to bounce back from that performance, and in her fourth and last individual event held the following day, the 200-meter backstroke, Franklin won her second individual gold of the Olympics with a world record time of 2:04.06, bettering Kirsty Coventry's record of 2:04.81. In winning the 200-meter backstroke, Franklin also became the first American female to win the event at the Olympics since Melissa Belote did in 1972, forty years earlier. In her final event, the 4×100-meter medley relay, Franklin won gold with Rebecca Soni, Dana Vollmer and Allison Schmitt. Swimming the backstroke leg, Franklin recorded a time of 58.50 seconds, and the U.S. team went on to set the world record with a time of 3:52.05, besting the Chinese-owned record of 3:52.19 set in 2009.
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