Michael Phelps is used to rewriting history – now he’s eclipsing it too. Who knows. It could be for a day, it could be 10 days, two years.
Advertisement
On Thursday, Lochte shared a photo of himself and Michael Phelps enjoying take-out containers of spaghetti ahead the 200-meter individual medley.
Phelps’ four consecutive golds in the same event are unique for a swimmer, and place him in the same Olympic pantheon as fellow-Americans Al Oerter in the discus and Carl Lewis in the long jump.
The record: the most all-time individual Olympic titles – a mark previously held by Leonidas of Rhodes.
If Michael Phelps were a country, he would be in the top 40 nations for Olympic gold medals.
Phelps didn’t just win – he smashed it.
Less than an hour after winning the 400m IM, Phelps qualified for the men’s 100 butterfly final on Friday night.
This long-awaited showdown is expected to be the last meeting between Phelps and Lochte, who are 31 and 32 years old, respectively.
Then, he’ll close out these Olympics in the 4×100 medley relay. Barbara Engleder won the 50m rifle three position contest for Germany’s first gold in Olympic women’s shooting. “I’m happy with myself”.
The last two swimmers to win joint gold were USA pair Gary Hall and Antony Ervin, who shared the men’s 50-meter freestyle title back in 2000.
Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom took the bronze in 52.99.
Ryan Murphy grabbed his second gold medal of the Games after winning the 200-meter backstroke title.
Murphy hit the wall in 1 minute 53.62 seconds, 0.34sec ahead of Australia’s Mitchell Larkin.
Murphy’s double makes him just the sixth man to win the backstroke double at a Games and the first since Aaron Peirsol in 2004.
The U.S. men have now won the event for six successive Olympics dating to Atlanta in 1996.
“The biggest thing for me through the meet so far is I’ve been able to kind of finish how I wanted to”.
“The hundred back was a real confidence booster”. Going into the first race you don’t really know how it’s going to be. “The 200 back is an event I really have to dig deep for, so this one means a little bit more to me”. “It turned out that way”.
In the only non-American victory of the night, Rie Kaneto of Japan pulled away from Yulia Efimova to take gold in the women’s 200 breaststroke. Shi Jinglin claimed bronze for China.
“I’m delighted”, she told reporters.
Advertisement
“I wish that end was a lot better”.
