“I love racing him”, Phelps said after the semifinals. “It’s for a whole bunch of people that came before me and have been an inspiration to me”.
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“That one was very painful but I wanted that one really bad”, Murphy told reporters. “He’s just an wonderful athlete, an unbelievable citizen, who has set the bar for athletes all around”. Franklin failed to even make it to the final of her two individual events.
None of it mattered to Manuel, who credited African-American Olympic swimmers Maritza Correia and Cullen Jones for her opportunity.
“Honestly, I think we’ve both just grown up. And that’s not true”.
Phelps has hinted that this will be his last Olympics.
“Things started to hit me this morning”, he said. “I was super excited and shocked because it was something that we had talked about during the beginning of the year”.
Ryan Murphy completed a backstroke double and extended a US winning streak, adding the men’s 200 gold to the 100 title he won earlier in the week. The race was made all the more exciting given the fact that Lochte holds the world record and Phelps the Olympic record for the event.
Poor Friedman. After what must have felt like an eternal silence, you can just hear it in his voice that he can’t believe that happened when he apologized to viewers. However, the man with green hair could only must a fifth place finish.
“He’s the hardest competitor I’ve ever had to go up against and he’s not likely to back down”.
The 200-metre individual medley field was chasing Michael Phelps, who was trying with every freestyle stroke to pass Leonidas of Rhodes.
Michael Phelps celebrates winning the men’s 200-meter individual medley final at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium on August 11, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.
That was nearly two seconds in front of silver medallist Kosuke Hagino of Japan, the 400m individual medley champion who powered from fifth at the final wall to touch in 1:56.61.
Phelps and Lochte had each medaled in the 200 IM in the last three Olympics.
Phelps waggled four fingers, recognizing another historic achievement.
Phelps, whose time was less than half a second off his 2008 world record, was asked if he would reconsider his decision to retire.
Perhaps in another 2,000 years the stories of Phelps and his exploits will be shared around the table given his astonishing record. Singapore’s Joseph Schooling was fastest in 50.83 seconds.
Phelps won the USA’s second gold of the night in the pool, after Ryan Murphy completed a sweep of the men’s backstroke events, winning the 200m.
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He sometimes seemed lost without swimming.
