Michael Phelps became the first swimmer ever to win four consecutive golds in the same event by winning his fourth consecutive 200m individual medley Olympic title on Thursday night.
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Phelps’ old foe Ryan Lochte led at the halfway point, but the world record-holder in the event couldn’t keep up and finished fifth.
Phelps took the lead in the breaststroke leg and eclipsed silver medalist Kosuke Hagino of Japan by almost two seconds, finishing in one minute, 54.66 seconds to Hagino’s 1:56.61.
Phelps, now with 26 Olympic medals, 22 of them gold, is laying claim to so many Olympic superlatives that he is re-writing the record books from a time before record books.
In other preliminary heats on Thursday, Americans Nathan Adrian and Anthony Ervin moved on to Thursday night’s semifinals for the men’s 50-meter freestyle and Michael Phelps and Tom Shields advanced to the semis for the men’s 100-meter butterfly, also on Thursday night.
US team mate and Olympic champion Missy Franklin, who won a relay gold on Wednesday despite not being selected for the final, made the cut with the 11th fastest time.
“It’s exciting”, said Phelps, an enthusiastic Ravens fan. The two are rooming in Rio this time around.
But, despite all that, Le Clos is desperate to see Phelps swim again and take him on in the 200m butterfly one more time. Along with the six Gold, he has three Silver and three Bronze.
Like we saw in the men’s 200 breast, where Kazakhstan’s Dmitriy Balandin won out of lane 8, anything can happen in the Olympic final, especially when the field is so tightly bunched.
According to NBC Olympics, the two own 93 Olympic and world championship medals between them and they have combined for the last five world record progressions and all of the reported top 10 all-time performances. The back-to-back world sevens series champions beat Japan 20-5 and Britain rallied to beat No. 2-ranked South Africa 7-5. China’s Wang Shun won bronze in 1:57.05.
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Ryan Murphy completed a backstroke double and extended a USA winning streak, adding the men’s 200 gold to the 100 title he won earlier in the week. She missed the 200 free final in her only other individual event in Rio. “Being able to share that one moment that I had with him, was definitely something very special”.
