Rio de Janeiro – Michael Phelps seized another slice of Olympic history on Thursday with a dominant victory in the 200m individual medley at the Rio Games, his fourth straight in the event. “Finally he’s going to do it, Ryan Lochte is going to beat Michael Phelps in this event in the games, and Phelps might not even make the podium!” They have raced, practiced, and competed with and against each other over the years and duked it out possibly one last time on Thursday night.
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At the pool, Phelps showed he wasn’t in Rio just to be a mentor or for a final ride off into the sunset by just showing up to the games.
The Iron Lady has already collected three gold medals in Rio.
Lochte, a year older, has 12 Olympic medals, six of them gold, and the 200 IM is his only individual event in Rio after taking gold alongside Phelps in Tuesday’s 4×200 freestyle relay.
“It’s going to take a flawless performance in order to beat him just because of how tough a competitor he is”, Lochte said. They’ll meet one more time. As it is, he’s respected and admired, but he’s not in the same stratosphere as Phelps. He bested Phelps in the 400m IM in the 2012 Olympics, and while he has mostly remained in Phelps’s shadow during the games, outside of them-and particularly during Phelps’s brief retirement-Lochte has been the world leader of late. Ledecky hardly kicked for much of the race, indicating she did not plan to chase her own world record in the event until the final.
“It’s going to take a flawless performance in order to beat him”, Lochte said. That’s just our competitive instinct that we have.
“He won’t give up and that’s awesome”. “I was a little bummed about my performance, but I was happy for him to get a gold and get one for Team USA”. “And hopefully I do the same for him”.
Lochte finished second swimming in an adjacent lane to Phelps in their semifinal Wednesday.
James Guy made up for a disappointing meet with a superb anchor leg to haul Britain into the silver medal position in 7:03.13 and Japan took bronze in 7:03.50. Also, Thiago Pereira of Brazil, the home favorite, also had a shot to shock the Americans.
While Phelps uses the cupping technique to relieve soreness and heal his muscles, Manduca-Marquez says it has many other benefits. I think so. I really think so. World champion Mitch Larkin, and Americans Jacob Pebley and 100 back victor Ryan Murphy will vie for medals. On their sport’s grandest stage. “That was fun. I like racing Michael”.
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Which isn’t true, of course. Especially if he can somehow find that one extra gear.
