Maya DiRado gets silver in women’s 400 individual medley

Santa Rosa’s Maya DiRado got her medal.

Pushing Hungarian champion Katinka Hosszu to a world-record performance in the women’s 400-meter individual medley, DiRado earned a silver medal in her first Olympics final Saturday night at Rio de Janeiro.

Hosszu is an old rival of DiRado. They swam against each other for two years in Pacific-12 Conference competitions, DiRado at Stanford and Hosszu at the University of Southern California.

Hosszu took control of the race almost from the start and DiRado used a strong backstroke leg to move firmly into second place, but the Hungarian was not to be denied. She added to her lead in the third 100-meter leg, the breaststroke, and sprinted home in the freestyle to post a time of 4 minutes, 26.36 seconds, easily eclipsing the record of 4:28.43 held by China’s Ye Shiwen.

“I honestly didn’t even see her, she was so far ahead,” DiRado said of Hosszu.

Hosszu had time to turn toward the scoreboard and savor her triumph before DiRado touched in 4:31.15. Mireia Belmonte Garcia of Spain won the bronze. Elizabeth Beisel of the United States, the silver medalist at the 2012 London Games, finished sixth.

“Before the race,” DiRado said, “I kind of smiled behind the blocks, which I don’t normally do. I was like, ‘I’m swimming in an Olympic final. I was the girl who was videotaping and recording all those sessions. And now I get to be up there.’”

Competing in her first Olympics, DiRado, 23, qualified at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials last month in Omaha, Neb., for three individual events in Rio - the 400 IM, the 200 IM and the 200-meter backstroke.

She was the top American qualifier in each event. The 200 IM will begin with preliminary heats on Tuesday, the backstroke on Thursday.

The Rio Games mark a beginning for DiRado. A decorated swimmer since her youth days with the Neptunes swim club, through successful school years at Maria Carrillo and an All-American career at Stanford, she was not an Olympian until this year. These games also mark a conclusion for her.

She has announced that this will be the end of her competitive career and she soon will move to Atlanta to begin working at a marketing consulting firm.