Now, the 31-year-old will return to Arizona with his fiancée and their 3-month-old son, Boomer, and settle into fatherhood. Phelps has always been the man to beat, and he’s had some real adversaries along the way.
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The record: the most all-time individual Olympic titles – a mark previously held by Leonidas of Rhodes. Fast forward to Rio de Janeiro, Schooling snapped Phelps’ four-race gold medal winning streak and became an instant icon back home and in Austin. For the first time ever, the trials were completely sold out.
Like many of his contemporaries in Rio, who grew up idolising Phelps, he keeps an old photo of himself as a bespectacled teenager with the American that was taken at a meeting in Singapore after the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Phelps may have been beaten, but the United States raked in plenty of gold on the penultimate night of action at the Olympic Aquatics Center.
Already the most decorated athlete in Olympic history, Phelps captured four more gold medals over the first six days to take his tally to a staggering 22 in his fifth and final Games.
By the time Ledecky reached for the wall on her 16th lap Friday night, shattering her own world record by almost two seconds with a time of 8 minutes, 4.79 seconds, there wasn’t another swimmer close enough to appear in a photo of the finish. “This kid just won a gold medal, guys”. I’m standing by that.
“Being able to continue to change the sport is something I am looking forward to”, he said.
It has been a hugely eventful Olympic judo competition which included the first Olympic medal for Kosovo and some inspirational performances from two Congolese refugee judokas.
A third-placed finish in the men’s 20km race walk for Dane Bird-Smith saw Australia claim its 500th Olympic medal.
Katinka Hosszu of Hungary will be aiming for gold in the women’s 200 backstroke and the world’s fastest men will compete in the 50 meter free final.
Ledecky’s 2016 Olympic Games were complete.
And his win in the 200-meters means the U.S. has won the event six times in a row dating to 1996 in Atlanta.
“The goal was 8:05 or better so I hit all my goals right on the nose this week”, said Ledecky, who improved the previous record of 8:06.68 she set in January. She was nearly three body lengths ahead after 300 meters.
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“The hundred back was a real confidence booster”. “When you look at the scoreboard at the end and Simone Biles is up there and you realize you competed against her, yeah, it’s so nice to know that you are just in that mix”. I’m on Tinder. My biggest relationships pretty much for the past four years have been in the swimming pool, and now that I’m taking a break – I’m going to take a break – I’ll settle down. “It turned out that way”. Townley Haas swam in the final, Jack Conger and Clark Smith in the preliminary. “Heavily chlorinated pools will turn your hair green especially if you are a blonde”, she explained. “I’ll be hungover tomorrow”, – Wiggins intends to enjoy Great Britain’s team pursuit triumph.
