As Phelps finished talking to reporters and started to walk away, one person asked a last question – what will this victory do for the USA team’s momentum?
Advertisement
“The best team did not win today”, she said.
Track and field events get underway Friday at Rio 2016, which arguably will be an uncomfortable moment for Russia’s Olympic team. Their day was capped by fan favorite Biles with a boundary-pushing floor exercise that showed just how far ahead they are of everyone else.
Biles, Lauren Hernandez, Gabby Douglas, Madison Kocian and Aly Raisman also gave retiring national team coordinator Martha Karolyi a fitting send off with powerful performances on all the apparatuses.
That’s a quote from none other than Sarah Sjostrom, the Swedish swimmer who took a silver medal Monday behind the great Katie Ledecky, who won the 200-meter freestyle event. Along with her individual golds, Ledecky also topped the podium with the 4×200 free relay.
“I think what it means is we have just a great sporting culture and a really fantastic system of sport in our country”, said Alan Ashley, the USOC chief of sport performance.
Michael Phelps goes for history – again – and Katie Ledecky is set up to make some of her own in the Olympic pool.
Chen Ruolin and Liu Huixia didn’t seem to care what color it was.
Competitions wrap up Saturday in swimming and rowing – but they are just heating up in track and field, which will award five golds: for the women’s 100 meter sprint and the heptathlon, and the men’s 10,000 meters, discus and long jump.
The U.S. arrived in Rio sitting on 977 gold and, according to Olympstats.com, the former Soviet Union with 473 ranks second with Germany a distant third with 288.
Chalmers dethroned defending champion Nathan Adrian of the United States in the final of the 100-meter freestyle Wednesday night.
Phelps has another chance to further his grip on the record with the 100-metre butterfly event still to come and with two gold medals already in his back pocket, it would be hard to rule him out. It may be Phelps’s best event, but he mistimed his finish in London and that allowed le Clos to beat him at the line.
It didn’t sit well with the American superstar, who got off to a rousing start at the Rio Games by leading his 4×100 freestyle team to the gold medal.
“Should be a fun race”, Phelps said.
The top-seeded American looked out of sorts and irritated, shanking shots from side to side. After being knocked out in singles and doubles, this is Williams’ remaining event and one she entered because of the other eliminations. Svitolina, who had never before played in an Olympics, smiled and stuck her arms out in front of her, palms up, as if waking up from a dream.
It was the 21st gold medal for Phelps, most in Olympic history in any sport.
Sure, Phelps hogged the spotlight on this night, but let’s not forget two other very impressive swimmers.
Carli Lloyd scored the lone goal for the Americans. Coach Bill Belichick even donned an Ebner No. 12 rugby jersey this week.
Before he was a household name, and the most decorated Olympian of all time, Michael Phelps was a 15-year-old boy living in Baltimore, Maryland, with a passion for swimming and the hopes to one day win Olympic gold.
She’s already got a job lined up in Atlanta after the Olympics and made it clear she would be retiring no matter the results. But facing Brazilian Mariana Silva in the first round, Szogedi had to deal with a crowd shouting support for her opponent. After less than two minutes, the fight was over: Silva took Szogedi down and caught her in a stranglehold.
Both men and women will compete in medal events Wednesday. The soccer great was the organizers’ preferred choice to light the cauldron, but first cited sponsorship commitments and later health concerns for staying away.
He’s favored to win his fourth and put gold medal No. 22 in the vault.
Advertisement
Ledecky turned in a split of 1 minute, 53.74 seconds, which was almost 2.5 seconds faster than her next-fastest teammate, Allison Schmitt in 1:56.21.
