Phelps made his Olympic bow in 2000, winning his first gold in Athens in 2004. She won by almost 12 seconds, leaving her top rivals half a pool behind.
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Phelps came in second, earning a silver on 51.14 seconds – tied with South Africa’s Chad Le Clos and Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh.
“I think what it means is we have just a great sporting culture and a really awesome system of sport in our country”, said Alan Ashley, the USOC chief of sport performance. “It’s a young, hungry team and I think that’s something that is really special that I had the opportunity to be a part of in 2000”. “I just let my imagination run away with me a little bit”. “But I’m accepting it”. There is plenty of documentary evidence to attest to the dominance of Phelps, victor of a record 21 golds and 25 medals in an astonishing career spanning five Games that is far from finished.
This may well be Phelps’ last Olympics go-round, why with the 31-year-old already considered an “old man” in a sport where youth, energy, and stamina are of the utmost.
“This moment is not about me, it’s all about my coaches my friends my family that believed that when I was a six year old kid that I could do it”, he said. “I actually got to meet his family on my way down”. The 100 back was an event that comes a little bit more natural. “I need to chill by myself and realize what I’ve done”. Tasmin Cook finished strong for Australia but the team was 1.84 seconds behind.
Phelps, who took his tally to four gold medals at Rio by winning the event for the fourth consecutive Games in succession, moved ahead of Leonidas after edging out Japan’s Kosuke Hagino and China’s Wang Shun.
“There’s nothing I can do”, Phelps said after Friday’s race. Still, it was seen as quite an upset when the US not only saw gold captured by the relatively obscure South Africans – but even lost silver to an ecstatic Team Netherlands. Like I said, hats off to Joe.
“It keeps them excited and hungry for another four years”. She took two seconds off her previous world record set earlier this year.
The first Games of the Modern Olympics produced the fewest golds (11) while the Soviet-boycotted 1984 Los Angeles Olympics generated the most (83). Schooling was described as being in a new wave of swimmers who were inspired by Phelp’s previous performances in the Olympic games.
“My love for my son is nothing I can describe to you all”.
If you like untouchable supremacy, she dished that up in her 400 freestyle swims. She remains undefeated in major worldwide individual events.
The Americans led off with Allison Schmitt, who also swam in Wednesday morning’s preliminary heat.
“She gave a little snicker”, Schmitt said.
Ledecky’s admirers include numerous biggest names in the sport. “There’s no doubt in my mind”.
“It feels great – kind of feels surreal right now, it’s insane”, he said.
He sees Ledecky as the obvious candidate to replace the retiring Phelps as the face of American swimming.
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“Right now I don’t know how to wrap my head around that”. “She’s probably the only person”.
