United States' 4 x 100-meter medley relay team from left, Allison Schmitt, Dana Vollmer, Rebecca Soni and Missy Franklin pose with their gold medals at the Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Saturday, Aug. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
United States’ 4 x 100-meter medley relay team from left, Allison Schmitt, Dana Vollmer, Rebecca Soni and Missy Franklin pose with their gold medals at the Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Saturday, Aug. 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

LONDON | Missy Franklin’s breakout performance in the London Games has given the grief-stricken town of Aurora a whole lot to smile about. Franklin capped a brilliant Olympic debut with a gold medal in the 4×100 individual medley relay on Saturday night, giving her four gold medals and a bronze.

“I hope this means a lot to them,” Franklin says. “I have constantly been thinking about them throughout this whole time. Everything I did here is dedicated to them.”

Franklin is from the Denver suburb of Centennial and goes to high school in Aurora, where a mass shooting in a movie theater on July 20 shook the town to its core.

“It was so, so terrible what happened and it’s still hard to believe it really did happen,” Franklin says. “I hope that I was able to bring some smiles back to Colorado. The supportive tweets and Facebook posts I’ve been getting, so many people have been saying that I’ve been doing that. That just means the world to me.”

COURTNEY OAKES

Courtney Oakes is sports Editor and photographer with Sentinel Colorado. A Denver East High School alum. He came to the Sentinel in 2001 and since then has received a number of professional awards from...