“I told him, ‘Four more years?’ and he said, ‘No way.’ If he changes his mind, that would be fun”.
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Phelps’ Olympics continue Saturday night when he swims the butterfly leg of the medley relay. Joseph Schooling stormed clear of the field to triumph in 50.39 seconds and earn Singapore’s first Olympic gold, with Phelps, Chad Le Clos and Laszlo Cseh all three-quarters of a second back.
“A three-way tie is pretty wild”, Phelps said. “It’s kind of special and a decent way to finish my last individual race”.
“Just four years. of everything”, he said, wiping his eyes. “I’m sorry if I don’t seem like I’m full of emotions right now”. “I think it’s just a testament to the vision that Bruce and I had three years ago, and we weren’t going to stop until we hit those goals”.
Phelps, he added, is “a guy that will go down in our history books as the greatest of all time of any sport”. “I’m just proud to be part of that history”.
The first day of track and field yielded a couple firsts for the United States: Michelle Carter is not only the first female American to take gold in the shot put, but she and her father Michael (who won silver in 1984 before embarking on an National Football League career) are the first-ever father-daughter team to capture individual-event track and field medals.
In storming to victory, she became the first-ever teenager to defend an Olympic swimming title, and made it a ideal 15 from 15 in individual events at major global meets.
Maya DiRado touched the wall an instant ahead of Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu to pull of a surprising victory in the 200-meter backstroke. Bronze went to Canada’s Hilary Caldwell.
The Welsh swimmer became the first British athlete at these Games to win more than one medal when she again proved to be best of the rest behind Katie Ledecky in the 800 metres freestyle. Meyer took the 200, 400 and 800 at the 1968 Mexico Games, and Ledecky matched that performance with a couple of world records as well.
The 800-meter Olympic gold is Ledecky’s second in the event. For 11 seconds Katie was in the pool celebrating her new world record before silver medallist Jazz Carlin from Britain touched the wall. The impression one gets is that if Ledecky kicked harder, if she did what her competitors are doing, it would only disrupt her mystifying propulsion.
“I couldn’t be here today without them”, she said.
The 19-year-old from suburban Washington capped off one of the greatest performances in Olympic history with her fourth gold medal and second world record, shattering her own mark in the 800-meter freestyle Friday night. Sjostrom herself had won Gold in the 100M butterfly 2 days before but when competing against the 19-year-old torpedo, Sarah knew there was going to be only one victor. Florent Manaudou of France claimed silver and American Nathan Adrian bronze.
Ervin won his first gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, tying teammate Gary Hall Jr. for the top spot.
“To come away with two silver medals is an incredible feeling”.
Turns out, it was swimming all along.
Stenson had a 68 at Olympic Golf Course to be just two shots behind and in the final group.
She certainly did that.
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“It’s taken a lot of time to get here and there’s been times when I haven’t believed in myself but my family and all the support staff I’ve got around me have said they believed in me from the bottom so I’ve got a lot of people to thank and I feel very lucky”.
