Michael Phelps captured his 23rd and final Olympic gold medal on Saturday as the United States sealed a week of dominance in the pool by winning the men’s and women’s medley relays.

Gregorio Paltrinieri

Denmark’s Pernille Blume beat a field of world and Olympic champions to take gold in the women’s 50 freestyle and Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri won the men’s 1,500 freestyle after dominating almost from the start.

But it was Phelps who stole the show yet again when he sprang from the block to swim the butterfly leg of the 4x100 medley relay, recapturing the lead from Britain and setting up yet another US victory, after Ryan Murphy had led off by breaking the world backstroke record.

“I walked to the pool tonight and I almost felt myself starting to cry – the last warm-up, the last time putting on a suit, the last time walking out in front of thousands of people representing my country,” Phelps, 31, said of his final swim in his fifth Olympic Games.

He ended the week with five golds and a silver, improving on his tally in London four years ago when he came away with four golds and felt he had failed to do himself full justice, prompting him to come back from retirement in 2014.

“This is the way I wanted to finish my career,” he said.

His medal haul of 28, including three silvers and two bronze, is 10 higher than Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina, the second most-decorated Olympic athlete.

Murphy, who completed a backstroke sweep with victory in the 100 and 200 events as well as the medley relay, said he felt breaking Aaron Peirsol’s world record in the lead-off of Phelps’s final race was especially poignant.

“To do it in one of the most watched races in the history of swimming, Michael Phelps’s last race – that’s something I am going to cherish forever,” Murphy said of the 51.85 seconds he swam in Rio to eclipse Peirsol’s 51.94 set in the bodysuit era in 2009.

The Americans completed a haul of 33 medals in the pool including 16 golds, with Australia and Hungary trailing on three golds each.

Britain took the relay silver, with Adam Peaty swimming a storming second leg to haul his team up from sixth to first, and Australia won the bronze.

In the previous race, Simone Manuel anchored the US women’s 4x100 metres medley team to the 1,000th gold medal in her country’s Olympic history.

It was Manuel’s second gold in the space of three days, adding to the 100 freestyle she claimed on Thursday, and came about 40 minutes after she took silver in the 50 freestyle.

Denmark’s Blume won that race in 24.07 seconds, winning by 0.02 seconds from Manuel, with Aliaksandra Herasimenia a further two-hundredths of a second behind in third.

The gold was Denmark’s third in swimming, and the first since 1948.

Italy’s Paltrinieri won the 1,500 metres freestyle after dominating throughout the race with a relentless display of technique and endurance in the longest event in the pool.

Connor Jaeger, of the US, took the silver, and Italy’s Gabriele Detti won bronze after overhauling Jordan Wilimovsky of the US in the closing stages.

The winner, however, never seemed in doubt after world champion Paltrinieri took the lead at 150 metres and wore down the rest of the field to win by 4.91 seconds.

“It’s incredible. Really. I have been dreaming of this particular moment since I was a young child and it’s amazing,” the 21-year-old said.