“Mission accomplished”, he said after claiming the 20th Olympic gold of his career, a number that became 21 after he helped the United States team win the 4x200m freestyle relay in the evening’s finale. With 25 medals overall, Phelps is the most decorated Olympian of all time – and has won more than twice as many medals than the next top medal victor, who has just nine.
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“That’s a lot of medals”, Phelps said, shaking his head.
“That was probably one of my most challenging doubles”, the 31-year-old Phelps said of swimming in two finals just an hour apart.
His first gold came in the much anticipated men’s 200m butterfly event, which saw the return of Phelps vs Chad Le Clos.
“That being my very first Olympic event, to be able to win it at my fifth Olympics is pretty special”.
“That event was kind of my bread and butter”.
I don’t know what it was, because he wasn’t at the post-race press conference after the relay gold as two of his teammates were instead.
“Having that come to an end is weird, it’s insane to think about”. The Washington D.C. product even set a world record in the 400m Monday night, and added to the gold she earned four years ago in London. Watching the (2012) race again, it frustrated me. “There wasn’t a chance in hell I would lose that tonight and if I did every ounce of energy would have been left in the pool”, he said.
As the US swim star Natalie Coughlin put it Tuesday night on Twitter, “Don’t poke the bear”. But there was no emotional victory this time round.
Phelps had touched the wall in one minute, 53.36 seconds, slower than his 2012 silver medal performance, with Sakai finishing in 1:53.40. “It’s good to see he’s awake”.
As the noise grew, Phelps stood tall and asked the crowd for more.
The American crushed rival Chad le Clos to regain his 200 metres butterfly title, celebrating victory in a race bristling with tension by pointing to the sky and gesturing to the Rio crowd to “bring the noise” – an order they duly obeyed.
“When I took a half-stroke I thought the same thing as ’08 (in the 100m butterfly in Beijing)”. Silver is great but if we’d had that race again I would have loved to have won it. Assuming Phelps gets through the heats and semis, he’ll swim in the finals Thursday night. Townley Haas, Conor Dwyer and the swimming legend, Ryan Lochte were alongside Phelps.
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Phelps looks for a fourth straight gold medal in the 200-meter individual medley.
