RIO DE JANEIRO -- The last time Anthony Ervin won the Olympic 50-meter freestyle, he ended up selling his gold medal for just over $17,000 in an effort to raise funds for tsunami relief efforts in Indonesia.

16 years after winning that first medal, Ervin turned back time to earn a replacement.

A Rio Olympics already marked by incredible success for Cal swimmers moved into even more momentous territory Friday when Ervin struck gold and fellow Golden Bear Nathan Adrian claimed bronze in the meet's fastest race. 

It is the second medal in Rio for Ervin, who swam the prelims of the 400 freestyle relay to help Team USA eventually take gold, and third for Adrian who adds it to a gold in that same relay and bronze in the 100 freestyle. With the victory, the 35-year old Ervin becomes the oldest individual swimmer in history to win Olympic gold. The 16-year period between gold medal swims also marks the longest stretch ever between golds in the same swimming event.

Competitive desire took the place of any deep-rooted strategy in Friday's dash to the wall. Ervin and Adrian each left the blocks with an identical reaction time of 0.69 seconds, but it didn't take long for the pair to track down France's Florent Manaudou. Ervin and Manaudou reached for the wall in quick succession but it was Ervin who got there first, finishing with a time of 21.40 that was a narrow one-hundreth of a second better than his French counterpart's 21.41. Adrian finished a clear third in 21.49.

"I kind of laughed," Ervin told reporters after the race. "It's almost absurd I was able to do it again."

Ervin's return to the pinnacle of his sport will go down without question as one of the lasting memories from Rio. He finished just one-hundreth of a second behind Adrian in the 50 free at the U.S. Olympic Trials, earning a trip to his third Olympic games. That carried history with it as well, as he became the oldest American male swimmer to qualify for an individual event since 1904.

Of course, the fact that he even stood on the block Friday was a testament to Ervin's desire to return to the upper echelon of swimming. He retired from competitive swimming at age 22, and when he returned to the sport in 2011, he worked with both Cal women's swimming coach Teri McKeever and men's coach David Durden along his comeback trail. In April of 2016, he left USC to train with David Marsh at SwimMAC Carolina and the ultimate result of all that work came Friday in Rio.

Having spent the Olympics as co-team captains alongside Michael Phelps, Ervin and Adrian have worked not only towards their own success but also towards the success of Team USA. That collaboration drew from the roots both laid in Berkeley, and even had they not medaled Friday, each has been an invaluable component for the team's success.

"Nathan's a fierce competitor, and when I see that, that reflects on me so I like to compete too," Ervin said. "We certainly push each other really hard in training and in racing. It's been me and him in the 50 for the last four years. Being here on this team, Nathan stepped it up and was a captain on this team this time around. He's done an incredible job because we have a really young team. A lot of those younger people look up to Nathan and Nathan really did show that leadership that those younger people need."

Adrian also continues to make a lasting mark in Rio. With seven medals, he continues to further establish himself as No. 2 all-time behind Matt Biondi among Cal men's swimmers when it comes to hardware earned at the Olympics. Adrian, as well as double gold medalist Ryan Murphy, could also get a chance to add to his medal count on Saturday in the 400-meter medley relay.