This was a moment for revenge for Michael Phelps and he took it.
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With challengers all around, he simply wouldn’t be denied. Then he sat on a lane rope, egging on the roaring crowd at the Olympic Aquatics Center with both hands, before emphatically pumping his fist. He will also be part of the 4×200 freestyle relay, a race the Americans have won at the last three Olympics.
Phelps avenged his defeat at the 2012 London Games by winning the 200-meter butterfly on Tuesday night, holding off Japan’s Masato Sakai by a mere four-hundredths of a second.
China won the bronze, 68-hundredths of a second back of Russian Federation.
The 200-meter butterfly is what Phelps does best, but he mistimed his finish in London, allowing le Clos to edge im at the line. Phelps and Ryan Lochte became the first two swimmers to win four gold medals in the event.
“Just being able to see the number one next to my name again, one more time in the 200 fly, I couldn’t have scripted it any better”, he said.
Hungary’s Tamas Kenderesi took home the bronze ahead of le Clos, who ran out of steam and finished fourth. The 12-time world series champions and one of the leading contenders for the first rugby medals awarded at an Olympics in 92 years, the New Zealanders struggled against the high-energy team from Japan. He ended up swimming at a brisk pace after just coming off of an emotional victory over Chad Le Clos in the 200 m butterfly. After a brief delay, he put on a riveting race, finishing with a time of 1:53.36 to earn his 24th Olympic medal.
Teenage sensation Ledecky held off Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom to add the 200m freestyle crown to her previous success over 400m. World-record holder Federica Pelligrini of Italy was fourth. “That’s the closest I’ve ever come to throwing up after a race”.
“Nothing. I’ve been getting on that Snapchat game”.
“That’s a lot of medals”, Phelps said, shaking his head. “I couldn’t have gone any faster, it’s impossible”. At least I was able to make Rio, which was one of my goals.
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It was a fourth straight Olympic 4x200m free gold for the United States men. In addition to the gold for Phelps and relay teammates Townley Haas, Ryan Lochte, and Conor Dwyer, Katie Ledecky out-touched Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden for gold in the women’s 200m freestyle, and the #FinalFive ladies of the women’s gymnastics team -Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez, and Madison Kocian- cruised to gold over second-place Russian Federation by more than eight points.
