For a swimmer who said he was done with the sport after the 2012 London Olympics, American Michael Phelps put on a performance at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics that left most at a loss for words.
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And the most decorated Olympian of all time was clearly out to leave a valedictory flourish.
However, the favorite for that race has to be Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu, who topped the prelim heats with a time of 2:06.09 and is seeking her fourth gold medal of the Rio Games.
Phelps, who was still a teenager, won six gold medals and two bronzes in Athens – a feat which already made him the second most successful American athlete in a single Games.
Now he will return home to Arizona, where he will spend time with his fiancee Nicole Johnson and three-month old baby Boomer and join his coach Bob Bowman on the deck of the Mona Plummer Aquatic Center at Arizona State University as a volunteer assistant coach.
“I wanted to come back and finish my career how I wanted”, he told Lauer.
“A lot better than it was four years ago, this is how I wanted to finish my career”.
Phelps swam the butterfly third leg of a tight race, pushing the USA from second behind Great Britain up to first before freestyle specialist Nathan Adrian saw it home for gold in an Olympic record time of three minutes 27.95 seconds.
Phelps retired following the London Olympics – disappointed with his performance and exhausted of the sport – but returned 18 months later in search of a better ending to more than two decades in the pool.
After once getting Michael Phelps’ autograph as a 9-year-old, Ledecky now takes over for him as the dominant force leading the decorated USA team.
But the struggles of his past only make him more human.
“I held back a little bit on the podium but there were some [tears] that were popping down”. The Australians won 10 total medals in swimming, while Hungary and Japan each had seven.
“This is the way I wanted to hang my suit up”.
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Over the weekend, the 28 Olympic medalist spoke of his newborn son Boomer, telling E! “I won’t. I’ll be there watching, cheering people on. This is it. This is the last time you’ll ever see me racing in the water”. I still do want to continue to succeed in this sport. “I want to be there every step of the way, I don’t want to miss a thing”.
