But as the most decorated athlete in modern Olympic history took home another gold medal Tuesday night, he equaled a mark that was set in the ancient games, according to Olympic historian Bill Mallon. Phelps-Lochte finished 1-2 at the 2004 and 2012 Games while Phelps was first and Lochte third in 2008.
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“I did come pretty close to throwing up”. Phelps led wire to wire while le Clos kept glancing over to Phelps during the race.
Phelps has won the 200m medley at three straight Games, with Lochte taking two silvers and a bronze behind him.
But, Phelps has a chance Wednesday to break the record and have more titles than any Olympian, ever.
“Michael usually works this way”, longtime coach Bob Bowman said of the man who now owns 19 gold medals and is competing in his fifth Olympics. “That yellow ring means everything if you want to win here”, Soto said. “Leaving everything in the pool one last time is what I’m going to do and if that’s good enough to win, we’ll see”.
With Ledecky and Smith assured on being on the team for the final, that left two available spots.
Phelps held off Japan’s Masato Sakai with a time of 1 minute, 53.36 seconds, but that number was of little concern. China’s Xu Jiayu was second-quickest in 1:55.51 ahead of Australian Mitch Larkin and 100m backstroke gold medallist Ryan Murphy.
What makes the achievement even more remarkable is that the former party animal was in rehab for substance abuse only a year ago, had been banned from swimming and came out of retirement to compete in Rio.
London gold medalist Ranomi Kromowidjojo was fourth-fastest. She is undefeated in Olympic competition.
“The fact is, with the exception of a handful of players who actually played to their full strength today, the other players, unfortunately, did not play to their capacity”, – assistant coach of Russia’s women’s water polo team, Andrei Belofastov , was not impressed with their 14-4 loss to Australia.
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Team USA’s women will look to follow the men’s lead as the gold medal hopefuls in the 800 freestyle relay.
