On Friday, the world’s spotlight will shine on Phelps when he carries the flag for Team USA at the Opening Ceremony, the United States Olympic Committee announced Wednesday.
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Phelps has captured 18 golds and 22 medals overall, far more than any other Olympic athlete, and hell be the first US male swimmer to compete in five Summer Games.
For a program that features some incredibly well-paid NBA players (Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Carmelo Anthony to name just a few), it really comes as no surprise that Team USA basketball would indulge a bit during the Olympics.
I kind of want to steal that jacket, said Ryan Lochte, who is Phelps roommate in the Olympic village. For Beijing, I wanted to do something nobody else had done (breaking Mark Spitz’s record with eight gold medals). In London, I wanted to make history.
The first-time trio also played on the US national team’s 2015 European tour, and Griner and Stewart were members of the 2014 FIBA World Championship team that qualified for these Games with a gold medal. Phelps will be the first US swimmer since Gary Hall at the Montreal 1976 Games to lead Team USA at the opening ceremony.
Organizers hired around 600 people to work on repairing the 31-building complex housing more than 17,000 participants at the Rio de Janeiro Games and within days they had coaxed the Aussies back. “It feels so right to have the most decorated Olympian of all time being our flag-bearer and leading us”.
But the victor of a record 22 Olympic medals, including 18 golds, left the door open by the smallest of cracks that a sixth Games could be on his agenda.
The 200m individual medley, won in 2008 and 2012, is another strong chance for gold, as are the relay races – where he could earn a medal just by swimming in the heats for a later victorious USA, even if he doesn’t participate in the final competition.
Since women’s basketball became part of the Olympic programme in 1976 the USA have lost just three games.
He joked that he said it only to prevent media members from beating up on him if he unexpectedly changes his mind about the 2020 Games in Tokyo.
Elena Delle Donne, Brittney Griner and Breanna Stewart will compete on their first Olympic team n Rio de Janeiro. He has since remained sober, gotten engaged, and welcomed his first child, son Boomer. “I think he’s gonna come back”.
America’s men’s and women’s 2016 Olympics basketball teams will recuperate from games and practice aboard the Sliver Cloud, a luxury liner anchored in the Rio Harbor.
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“It has not been an easy time but I am training hard for Rio”, he said in a statement. “I passed Djokovic in the village and I was ‘Oh, I want a picture.’ I’m enjoying it again”.
