Michael Phelps claimed his 20th Olympic gold medal by winning the men’s 200m butterfly final at the Rio Olympics on Tuesday. But does he have a strong connection with the force, too?
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But one time Phelps did lose, was in the 200-meter butterfly at the 2012 London Olympics, when South Africa’s Chad Le Clos overcame a deficit in the final ten meters and beat Phelps to the wall by 0.05 seconds.
Twitter wasn’t going to let that slip. Chen Ruolin and Liu Huixia didn’t seem to care about the color.
Phelps’s victory over Le Clos – the South African finished fourth – must have been a sweet feeling after his rival had publicly stated that he meant to break the American’s butterfly world records in Rio.
United States’ Simone Biles completes her routine on the vault during the artistic gymnastics women’s team final at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016.
Competing in his fifth and final Olympics, victory was twice as sweet for Phelps after clashing with le Clos in the media since losing to the South African in their epic tussle in London.
“That’s a lot of medals”, Phelps said, shaking his head.
“The last 10 meters were not fun”, Phelps said.
At the London Olympics in 2012, the United States team (Gabby Douglas, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, Kyla Ross, and Jordyn Wieber) was nicknamed The Fierce Five, though the media dubbed them the “Fab Five” before the Olympics even began.
US gymnasts and gold medallists, right to left, Simone Biles, Gabrielle Douglas, Lauren Hernandez, Madison Kocian and Aly Raisman acknowledge the crowd during the medal ceremony for the artistic gymnastics women’s team at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016.
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.
Brazilian soccer fans have found a new team to cheer – their women.
RUGBY STUNNER: Sonny Bill Williams was helped off with an ankle injury during New Zealand’s shocking 14-12 loss to Japan in its first game of rugby sevens. Biles is only 19 years old, but she’s already been called one of the greatest of all time.
JUDO HISTORY: Hungarian-born Szandra Szogedi made history when she stepped onto the judo mat to become the first judoka to represent Ghana – she obtained citizenship through her husband. Rafael Silva earned Brazil’s first gold medal of the games on Monday in the 57kg division. After less than two minutes, however, the fight was over: Silva took Szogedi down and caught her in a stranglehold.
PELE IMPROVING: Pele tweeted that he hopes to appear at the closing ceremony after missing the opening because of his health.
Drysdale and Synek have dominated the single sculls in recent years, with world record holder Drysdale winning Olympic gold in London and Synek clinching all three world championship titles since then.
The “total audience delivery” figure is a statistic NBC hurriedly invented when it saw sharp declines in its traditional ratings for the first couple of nights of the Rio de Janeiro Games.
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After an International Olympic Committee (IOC) session in Copenhagen in October 2009, the apex body chose to reinstate the sport for the 2016 Olympic Games.
