Thursday night the final showdown between longtime rivals Phelps and Ryan Lochte in the 200-meter individual medley turned into another display of Phelps’ dominance at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium.
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But national swimmer Joseph Schooling was that tiny blip today, as the 21-year-old nailed a ideal race at the Olympic Aquatic Stadium to steal glory and gold from the American legend, who, incidentally, was the boyhood hero who had inspired Schooling to chase his Olympic dream.
One of the competitors that Schooling beat out in the men’s 100m butterfly race was perhaps the world’s best known swimmer – Michael Phelps, who has now picked up five medals in this Olympics alone.
Phelps, on the other hand, finished in a three-way tie for silver with South Africa’s Chad le Clos and Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh.
Joseph Schooling meets his idol Michael Phelps in 2008. “It’s kind of special and a decent way to finish my last individual race”. He said: “Growing up, most swimmers, Chad also, idolised Michael”. Now do your best Michael Phelps. We’re so accustomed to seeing him on the blocks flapping those impossibly long arms as he leans into start position on the blocks, dolphin-kicking with those impossibly large feet, stroking through the water with those impossibly large hands and ripping off his U.S. cap to reveal those endearingly large ears.
Having retired in 2012, he made a surprise return to the game in 2014 and qualified for this year’s Olympics which turned out to be his 5th Olympic feature.
Joseph Schooling of Singapore won the gold. That averages out to 5.4 medals per Olympics. Hungary’s Tamas Kenderesi took bronze in 1:53.62.
Schooling was the first Singaporean athlete to be granted deferment by the government from his compulsory two-year conscription in October 2013.
But, according to the rationale statement that accompanied the 2015 rules change: “Unlike other legislation related to benefits from the USOC or national governing body, the exception for the Operation Gold program does not apply to global student-athletes”. “It’s another 300 (meters) I could do in the warm-down pool”.
Joe Schooling of Singapore, 21, who swims at the University of Texas and is a product of the swim-famous Bolles School in Jacksonville, Fla., pulled off the win, racing to an Olympic-record 50.39.
“I watched him swim last summer at worlds, so it’s up to him where he wants to take it”, he said.
On the track, Ethiopia’s Ayana set tongues wagging when she smashed a record set in 1993 by timing 29min 17.45sec, 15 seconds ahead of Kenya’s Vivian Cheruiyot in second. A medal machine. He was purposely boring, to protect himself from the scrutiny and introspection that would reveal his emptiness.
“This whole day has been kind of insane because it’s all of these little last things that I’ve gotten to do, like my last warmup with the girls at the training pool today”, DiRado said. Without a stopwatch dictating his days he was adrift.
Coming into Rio, there were those who doubted Phelps could do what he has done here. I only have one. This is it. I said it a bunch before. “I’m in a freer frame of mind now”.
Who am I, really, and what do I want to do? “I definitely hope he comes back”.
At the press conference, Phelps even joked to the press about their focus on him. In the 200 IM he was only.43 off his 2008 world record. I can’t even dream of getting 20 more. So many memories go through my head. “So I didn’t think he would let me down this time”. I think it’ll be exciting to see somebody else break 50 seconds again. “It’s been a hell of a career”.
They were most common in gymnastics under the old 10-point judging system, which also produced the only four-way tie, for men’s vault silver in 1984.
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And on your way out, be sure to remind Ledecky to have fun.
