Phelps entered the final race coming off a close second place finish to 19-year old Tamas Kenderesi of Hungary in the semifinal, who defeated Phelps by 16 hundredths of a second.
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The man who directed trash talk at Michael Phelps for a few years following his gold medal in the 200-meter butterfly at the London Olympics, was beaten on Tuesday night.
After shadowboxing and staring Phelps down before their meeting in the semi-finals Monday night, le Clos showed up to the final and finished fourth, while Phelps secured the 20th gold medal of his Olympic career.
Phelps, who would have had four successive wins in the 200 butterfly but for that London race, has now amassed a record-extending 25 Olympic medals. He then rejoined the other swimmers and posed for more photos, flashing a beaming smile. This shot came with about ten meters to go.
“That event was kind of my bread and butter”.
“Kind of having that come to an end, its insane to think about”.
Phelps was picked to finish up, looking to claim gold medal No. 21.
“I wanted to hold him longer”, Phelps said.
Phelps held off Japan’s Masato Sakai with a time of 1 minute, 53.36 seconds, but that number was of little concern.
Chad le Clos has been weighed, he has been measured and he has been found wanting.
The tense atmosphere was cut by shouts from the crowd just as the swimmers were trying to compose themselves, the start aborted before they had taken racing positions and spectators urged to stay silent.
Katinka Hosszu and Katie Ledecky struck further blows for girl power, but again it was all about Phelps, who later anchored the American 4x200m freestyle relay team to gold as the clock edged toward midnight local time.
The American then used his mighty “wingspan” to forge ahead into clear water.
He laughed out loud on the podium, amused by friends in the crowd shouting out the familiar “O” for the Baltimore Orioles baseball team while the USA basketball team looked on, and kissed the medal.
Ledecky (Above. Photo: Getty Images) captured her second gold medal of the Games after holding off a courageous charge from Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom in an absorbing women’s 200m freestyle final.
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And then he went around the pool to embrace his partner and baby son Boomer.
