Record-breaking Michael Phelps of the US has become the first swimmer to win four successive Olympic gold medals in one event by beating Ryan Lochte in the 200m individual medley.
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In fact, the CBC’s Elliotte Friedman called the entire 200m individual medley for Ryan Lochte, not Michael Phelps – only realizing his mistake at the very end.
The 31-year-old clocked 1 minute 58.78 seconds in his semifinal at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium on Wednesday, to finish ahead of USA teammate Ryan Lochte by half a second.
Apparently, Phelps lost this particular gold medal during the 200-meter butterfly event in the 2012 Olympic Games in London where South African swimmer Chad le Clos emerged victorious.
Olympic roommates Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte maintain a relaxed vibe at the athletes’ village. A three-way tie for the silver medal behind Joseph Schooling from Singapore in the 100-meter butterfly, marked the final individual race of the most decorated Olympian of all time.
It hurt so much that Phelps made it his mission to exact revenge in Rio and win it one last time.
In the women’s all-around, Simone Biles is the favorite to win gold and Aly Raisman will be a medal contender. Bronte was second at the flip and slid to fourth at the finish.
Phelps came away with the victory, clocking one minute, 55.78 seconds to post the fastest time across both semifinals.
“Just being able to see the number one next to my name again, one more time in the 200 fly, I couldn’t have scripted it any better.”
The 32-year-old Lochte, who said he would take a break from swimming now as he ponders his future, said he would have liked to have put up more of a challenge. The Americans are the top two all-time performers in the event.
Murphy already won gold in the 100 back.
This time, she was limited to a single gold, which came for swimming the preliminaries of the 4×200 freestyle relay. But after scraping into the semi-finals in 16th place on Tuesday he turned it up in the semis and led the way into Wednesday night’s marquee final.
“Michael Phelps has been talking about how slow the butterfly events have been recently”, he said.
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Should Phelps advance, and given his performances thus far it seems like a certainty, he can shoot for gold medal No. 22 in the medley final on Thursday night.
