Michael Phelps has advanced to the final of the Olympic 200-meter individual medley as the top qualifier.
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The American, who had won four finals in Rio to take his record tally to a staggering 22 golds, clocked 51.14, along with fierce rivals le Clos and Cseh.
Phelps won the event with a time of 1 minute and 54.66 seconds, followed by Kosuke Hagino of Japan in second with a time of 1:57.05 and Wang Shun of China in third with 1:57.21.
What made it even more special: Schooling still has a picture that he took with Phelps when the USA team trained in Singapore before the 2008 Olympics, the games where Phelps won a record eight gold medals in the pinnacle of his career. Lochte recently said that if Phelps weren’t around, “I guess you could say, I’d be the Michael Phelps of swimming”.
The win gives Phelps an unprecedented 13th individual Olympic victory (which is to say, not counting his relay wins), one more than Leonidas’ 12 individual victories.
“I’m going to need some time off, just a break mentally and physically and who knows – I might be back”.
Ma, the reigning world champion, came into the tournament expected to win, and he dismantled Zhang, whose first name was inspired by Brazilian soccer star Zico.
Phelps was swimming the morning after winning the 20th and 21st gold medals of his career in the 200m butterfly and the 4x200m freestyle relay, in which Lochte won his sixth gold. At the same time, Lithuania and Argentina will tip off in men’s basketball.
Thirty-five-year-old Anthony Ervin of the United States is back in the final as well, 16 years after he shared the gold with Gary Hall Jr.at the 2000 Sydney Games.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet”, Schooling said.
Australia’s Mitch Larkin grabbed the silver in 1:53.96, just ahead of Russia’s Evgeny Rylov with the bronze in 1:53.97.
“My goal was to win one gold”, Murphy said.
The Olympics came to an end for another US backstroke champion. Another American, Nathan Adrian, took the bronze.
The 25-year-old is allowed to compete in the Olympics as she trains in the United States and has undergone regular drug tests over the last two years.
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“This whole day has been kind of insane because it’s all of these little last things that I’ve gotten to do, like my last warmup with the girls at the training pool”, DiRado said.
