Now the answer is as plain as #PhelpsFace. “It’s not done yet; it’s not done growing, not in the US, and I’m going to continue to try to do it”. “He’s opened a lot of doors for all of us”.
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American Jeff Henderson won the long jump while Germany’s Christoph Harting won discus gold to keep the title in the family after his brother Robert, the 2012 champion, ruined his chances by straining his back while turning off a light with his foot.
That was not a picture presented before by Phelps, not as a young striver in his first Olympics at 15 in Sydney in 2000, not in Athens in 2004 where he arrived working his way up into the heavyweights alongside Ian Thorpe and Pieter van den Hoogenband.
“We’re here getting that 1,000th medal for the USA and it seems absolutely incredible”.
Muhammad, who became the first U.S. Olympian to wear a hijab during competition earlier this week, won a bronze medal along with her teammates in the women’s team sabre event.
This is a good thing, of course.
The Americans, who haven’t medaled since 1984, posted the best pool play performance in team history and still qualified for the quarterfinals.
But the current legacy is illustrated in a decade-old photograph of a delighted nine-year-old Katie Ledecky with Phelps – the American teenager is proving to be the dominant female swimmer of these Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Whether Phelps is ready for life without swimming remains unknown.
His unprecedented success and domination of competitive swimming has transformed the sport, the point of no return being when he broke Mark Spitz’s record of seven first place finishes at any single Olympic Games in 2008.
Four-time Olympian Carmelo Anthony says “we’re OK”.
The manner in which Phelps vaporised le Clos, Hagino and long-time rival Ryan Lochte in the 200m fly and 200m medley will have many wondering whether he isn’t bowing out too soon. Even a season’s best time of 24.13 secs was not quite enough in a desperately tight race, with the Danish victor Pernille Blume clocking 24.07 and Belarus’s Aliaksandra Herasimenia winning bronze in 24.11. It’s simply not likely that a swimmer of Phelps’ age can persist for another four years. Phelps sported an amusing Fu Manchu mustache.
“This is how I wanted to finish my career”, Phelps said.
The race came minutes after the 4×100 medley relay by the US team of Kathleen Baker, Lilly King, Dana Vollmer and Simone Manuel, who won the gold with a time of 3:53.13. The crowd went insane for its hometown guy.
At the Washington Nationals baseball game Friday, the team replayed the final stages of Ledecky’s world-record 800m on the video scoreboard during the seventh-inning stretch.
More nations are swimming, and more nations are producing elite athletes. The phenomenal Phelps has taken the art of winning to a level beyond the average human imagination.
With one gold and five silvers, it was British swimming’s most successful Games since 1908.
The 31-year-old had to come from behind on the butterfly leg of the 4x100m medley to set up the victory in 3min 27.95sec, which included a world record in the backstroke leg by America’s Ryan Murphy. He says he will be in Tokyo 2020, but only as a spectator. The Pan Pacific championships, which are held in the even-numbered year between Olympics? He hopes for Singaporeans to be more questioning so they can live in a more progressive and compassionate society.
Or, better yet: is it only the Olympics that really matter?
“One thousand gold medals is a remarkable achievement made possible by the culture of sport that is the fabric and foundation of Team USA”, said US Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun.
But Sunday morning, as the Olympic spotlight turns to track and field, swimming is nominally Phelps-less.
Bowman has called Phelps a “motivation machine” spurred to action by the slightest snub, and the sheer number of his triumphs have earned him the reputation of a “medal machine”.
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Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan, competing in her record seventh Olympics, will also try to reach the podium. There was the DUI arrest in the United States followed by a period of rehabilitation.
