There’s an ongoing card game in their suite and they amuse themselves with endless Snapchat sessions.
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Seventy-five minutes after racing, he was back in the water to swim the final leg of the 4×200 freestyle after Conor Dwyer, Townley Haas and Ryan Lochte had built a lead of 1.76 seconds.
Since returning from retirement, Phelps has also won gold in the 100-meter butterfly at the 2015 Pan American Championships and finished first at the USA national team time trials last month, so he’s shown that he’s still the man to beat in this category. That’s how it went four years ago in London, when Phelps won and Lochte finished second.
“The history him and I have had with one another, it’s something special and something I’ve never had in another competitor of mine”, Phelps said.
The moment is definitely a shoe-in to go down as one of the defining images of Michael Phelps career – that is unless Phelps and his son share an even more touching embrace in the races to come. It will be a chance for the United States to add four more gold medals overall on the night.
In other preliminary action today, Katie Ledecky broke an Olympic record in the 800-meter freestyle in qualifying for Friday night’s final.
The Brazilians have a stake in the 200 IM, too. Lochte beat Phelps in the 400 IM on the first day of swimming in London, his most notable victory on a big stage in their rivalry.
This is a race that, like some others, Phelps has dominated over the past dozen years.
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With a gold medal in the 800, she would become just the second female Olympian to win three individual freestyle events, matching Debbie Meyer’s feat from 1968. She still posted the best time by nearly seven seconds. World champion Mitch Larkin, and Americans Jacob Pebley and 100 back victor Ryan Murphy will vie for medals.
