Ryan Lochte has surpassed a swimming icon…

The 32-year-old half-Cuban American swimmer won his first gold medal of 2016 Rio Games and his 12th overall, swimming the third leg for the victorious U.S. 4×200 freestyle relay team on Tuesday night.

With the gold medal performance, Lochte passed Mark Spitz to become the second most decorated male Olympic swimmer of all time.

Michael Phelps swam the anchor leg, winning his second gold medal of the night, as the U.S. won an event it usually dominates by a substantial margin.

Team USA had the lead at the halfway mark thanks to Conor Dwyer (1:45.23) and Townley Haas (1:44.14), but Lochte and Phelps took the advantage to another level as the Americans beat runner-up Great Britain by more than two seconds.

With the gold in a time of 7:00.66 seconds, Lochte also passed his hero Matt Biondi to become the second-most-decorated American male swimmer in history behind Phelps with 12 Olympic medals — half of them gold.

It’s the 21st Olympic gold medal for Phelps, who continues to build on his seemingly unbeatable medal count of 25.

Team USA has won the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay on 17 occasions at the Olympic Games, a record for most wins by one country in a single swimming event.

Lochte needs a medal in Thursday’s 200m individual medley to pass American women Jenny Thompson, Dara Torres and Natalie Coughlin to become the second-most-decorated swimmer behind Phelps and the fourth-most-decorated athlete regardless of sport.