Phelps announced Sunday night that he would compete in the 4-by-100-meter freestyle relay just hours before the race began.
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Phelps showed a flash of dominance at a lower-level competition in San Antonio, Texas, last summer, which he swam in because he was banned from the world championships following a second DUI arrest.
In the past three Olympics, the United States and France have alternated finishing first and second. Teammate Ryan Lochte, the 2015 world champion, holds the world record (1:54 in 2011), while Kosuke Hagino, the 21-year-old from Japan who figures to be on the podium, has yet to break the 1:55 threshold in this event.
“I told them, it’s OK to cry”.
He said: “To have him watch the potential last races of my career is something I look forward to being able to share with him”.
“I think I had a pound of pasta and spaghetti”, he said.
The British swimmer cruised to victory in the 100-meter breaststroke with a time of 57.13 seconds Sunday night, shattering the mark of 57.55 he set a day earlier in the preliminaries.
As part of the relay squad Phelps secured his 23rd medal with the victory, United States of America coming home six tenths clear of France in second, with Australia completing the top three.
When Vollmer touched the wall she said, “Please let it be a medal”.
He lost by a single point, a similar scenario to that which played out in London four years ago. Their clocked time was 3:09.92.
“I know how hard it is to swim in the wake in that race and I was going to do whatever I could to get them out front”. In the men’s 100m backstroke, David Plummer and Ryan Murphy are medal contenders. The Americans will need to clean up their routines to have a shot at a medal. Murphy was one-hundredth of a second ahead of teammate David Plummer in separate semifinal heats. They’re the two fastest butterfly swimmers in American history and, together, give the USA a strong chance to win something here.
Cal’s Kathleen Baker led all qualifiers in the women’s 100 backstroke with an impressive time of 58.84 seconds.
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Nothing was left to chance, with the team even calling in four-time National Basketball Association champion Tony Parker to talk with the swimmers during one of their final training camps.
