Paris, France - Kate Douglass of the US held off South African favorite Tatjana Smith to win a thrilling women's 200m breaststroke gold at the Paris Olympics on Thursday.

Defending champion Smith established an early lead, but Douglass was impressive at the turns as she finished in a time of 2min 19.24sec. Tes Schouten of the Netherlands took bronze.

The 22-year-old Douglass was the silver medallist in the 200m breaststroke at the 2023 and 2024 world championships.

"I'm really excited. For a while I wasn't sure if Olympic champion was going to be possible for me to say, and now it's just really exciting to see it happen," she said.

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"I feel like I was just trying to stay calm and collected. I feel like the 200m breast, I pretty easily can stay relaxed before it, just because I have a specific race plan, and I know that if I stick to that, it's probably going to go pretty well," she continued.

"I'm really excited to be able to call myself an individual Olympic champion, and I'm really excited to get a gold for Team USA and help their medal count."

The victory is her third Olympic medal following bronze in the 200m medley in Tokyo and silver in the 4x100m freestyle relay in Paris.

Smith, who won gold in the 200 breaststroke Tokyo under her maiden name Schoenmaker and gold in 100m breaststroke earlier this week, is likely to bow out of the sport after these Games.

There was more disappointment for American Lilly King.

After missing the podium in the 100m breaststroke by 0.01 seconds, she finished last.