pared to Perrys 24.51. They are also curr

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Olympic medals are what happen when youre making other plans. Just ask Maya DiRado, who completed a walk-off grand slam Friday night with one last windmill stroke to beat Hungarys Katinka Hosszu by a touch for the gold medal in the 200-meter backstroke.DiRados line in her final box score: A perfect 4-for-4 with medals in each race she entered. Her meet was a success before she jumped into the water and tucked for the start. It was impressive enough that shed collected a silver in the 400 individual medley, a bronze in the 200 IM, and helped win the 800 freestyle relay -- her first relay final in a major international meet -- by keeping pace with her Australian counterpart in the third leg.Thought clearly preceded action for DiRado, who is retiring while she is ahead and will start a job with a management consulting firm next month. But her mind went blank as she fought to gain on Hosszu in the last few meters of Fridays race. DiRado felt her tempo slowing and her legs seizing up.In the practice pool area, newly-minted 100 freestyle gold medalist Simone Manuel, who trains with DiRado at Stanford University, paused in her preparations for the 50 free semifinals to pogo up and down, briefly losing her voice.That wasnt a problem inside the Olympic Aquatic Stadium where the decibel level spiked at the sight of DiRado pulling even.I heard the crowd getting louder and louder and louder, so I knew we were neck-and-neck, DiRado said. Then I hit the wall and looked up. It took me a little bit to process it, and then I looked at the blocks and saw the one dot (light). I dont know, its still hitting me. She paused, her throat constricted with emotion.DiRado didnt just reach for the wall. She whacked it, breaking a fingernail, a fitting metaphor for a race that was decided by .06 seconds.In an era when so many Olympic swimmers are prolonging their careers, wrestling with the ideal time to exit and understandably often changing their minds, the most striking thing about DiRado over the last few weeks has been her absolute and entirely believable conviction that shes right to leave the sport behind at age 23.She swam with controlled abandon at the U.S. Olympic trials and won three events. Once in Rio, DiRado continued to confirm her intentions after each success. Rather than draining her, talking about the end in sight seemed to carve weight from her shoulder blades. She gave off the settled air of someone who had fully explored the edges of her own envelope.Friday, DiRado noted each little last thing about her pre-race ritual with proper competitive grief and cried as she wrote her parents a thank-you note.Who doesnt want to end an important phase of life on the right note? The beauty of DiRados attitude was that she appeared to be willing to accept that note could be a sharp or a flat as long as she kept her own rhythm.DiRado said shell give one of her medals to her parents and leave one behind at Stanford University, where coaches Greg Meehan and Tracy Duchac encouraged her to be flexible about her plans as she kept surprising herself with her improvement.Im sort of at a loss, said Meehan, who is in Rio as a U.S. team assistant. It was the perfect race to end the perfect meet, and to have that be the last race of her life, are you kidding me? You couldnt script it any better.He anticipated what was next. Wouldnt it be tempting to see how much better she could get? Meehan was shaking his head before the breath was out of the question.No, he said, his eyes welling. I will miss her. Coaching her has been perhaps the greatest single privilege in my professional career and I will miss the relationship with her, the partnership, but no way. Not after that. You walk away and you just enjoy. Jeff McKnight Jersey . Speaking Thursday on TSN 1050 Thursday, the Leafs GM also touched on the questions surrounding the teams leadership and the struggles of his big-name free-agent signing. “Its not from lack of effort from the coaching staff. Justin Wilson Jersey . The Montreal Canadiens announced on Friday that the veteran forward will return to the teams line-up on Saturday night when the Habs visit the Nashville Predators. https://www.cheapmetsjerseys.us/1820l-tug-mcgraw-jersey-mets.html . -- Team after team passed on Andre Ellington in the draft. Nolan Ryan Jersey . He said Tuesday thats a big reason why he is now the new coach of the Tennessee Titans. Whisenhunt said he hit it off quickly with Ruston Webster when interviewing for the job Friday night. Jeurys Familia Jersey . The 17-year-old native of Marystown, N.L., pulled out of Skate Canada International last month in Saint John, N.B., with the same problem. Since the start of 2014, Australian allrounder Ellyse Perrys ODI scores read as follows: 65*, 0, 90*, 53, 72, 64*, 74*, 78, 48, 67, 90, 31, 50, 51, 64*, 35, 4, 17, 77*, 93*, 95*, 69, 56. In 23 innings, she averages 89.53, with 17 scores of 50 or more. From these numbers, its clear that she finds scoring fifties three times as easy as not scoring them.These stats are incredible for any player in any format, but even more so for Perry, who has been on a stunning spree in the last three years. Before 2014, in 37 ODI innings, mostly at Nos. 7 and 8, she had scored just 555 runs at 23.12, with a single half-century.Since 2014, though, her game has moved to another level. The average of 89.53 is easily the best for any player with at least 150 runs during this period. With a 750-run cut-off, the next best is Meg Lannings average of 58.20. Perrys average during this period is the highest for any batsman over three calendar years in womens ODIs (with a 1000-run cut-off). The next highest is Karen Roltons 76.64 between 2002 and 2004; Rolton also takes the third and fourth spots in this list, with averages of 73.66 between 2000 and 2002, and 66.43 between 2004 and 2006. Perrys 17 fifty-plus scores is a record too in a three-year period, with two others on 15 coming in next - Debbie Hockley, between 1995 and 1997, and Rolton (2003-05).In terms of runs scored, Perrys 1393 in her last 25 innings is the second-highest in womens ODIs. Belinda Clark had scored 1508 at 75.40 between November 1997 and February 2000. However, Clark was an opener, which gave her more opportunities to play long innings. In terms of averages, Perrys 87.80 is the best for any player over 25 successive ODI innings, marginally ahead of Roltons 87.73 between July 2001 and December 2004. Both batsmen had ten nots in those 25 innings, though, with Perry scoring only one run more than Rolton (1317 to 1316). Clarks average of 75.40 is third in the list. What is more incredible than the average is the number of 50-plus scores Perry has notched up in the last three years - 17 in 23 innings is scarcely believable, and something that has never been achieved in ODIs, by men or women. Even when taking a 25-innings sstretch, the next best is 15, by five of the top men in ODI batting - Kane Williamson, Javed Miandad, Hashim Amla, Viv Richards and Dean Jones.dddddddddddd. Among the women, 13 is the next highest, by four players - Hockley, Rolton, Clark and Mithali Raj. During this amazing run, Perry has two separate streaks of five or more successive fifties: from January 2014 to July 2015 she had six in a row, while she is currently on an streak of five in a row. The only other player to have two separate streaks or five or more 50-plus scores in womens ODIs is the former England captain, Charlotte Edwards. In fact, only three players in this format have six successive scores of 50 or more - Perry, Edwards, and Australias Lindsay Reeler.All these numbers dont even take into account Perry the bowler: in the 24 matches since the start of 2014, she has taken 33 wickets - sixth-highest during this period - at an average of 26.54. Six other women have achieved the double of 25 wickets and 500 runs during this period, but Perrys numbers stand out because the difference between her batting and bowling averages is a whopping 62.98; the next highest difference among this group is 21.32, for Suzie Bates. With an overall ODI career aggregate of 1898 to go with 112 wickets, Perry is within touching distance of becoming only the third woman to achieve the double of 2000 runs and 100 wickets. The two who have achieved this so far are Australias Lisa Sthalekar and West Indies Stafanie Taylor. Perrys numbers arent very different to those of Taylors in terms of the difference between the batting and bowling averages: the difference for Taylor, over her entire career, is 25.65, compared to Perrys 24.51. They are also currently Nos. 1 and 2 in the ICC ratings for ODI allrounders, while Perry is No. 2 in batting and No. 7 in bowling. In 2013, Taylor became the only player in ODI history, men or women, to simultaneously be ranked No. 1 in both batting and bowling. That is probably the gold standard that Perry would be aspiring towards. With inputs from Shiva Jayaraman. ' ' '