Michael Phelps wrapped up his 23rd career Olympic gold medal by putting the United States ahead to stay on the butterfly leg of the 4×100 medley relay. “Other people respect that”. While he finished the games in Australia with no medals, he started winning them one after the other ever since. He wasn’t there for long.
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It wasn’t in doubt after that. His last race might not have been a gold medal race, but he has given us 23 golden moments competing at the Olympics. Placing second was Great Britain with 3:29.24 and third was Australia with 3:29.93.
Phelps swam the butterfly third leg of a tight race, pushing the USA from second behind Great Britain up to first before freestyle specialist Nathan Adrian saw it home for gold in an Olympic record time of three minutes 27.95 seconds.
In Rio, where he took his Olympic tally to a staggering 28 medals – he also won three silvers and two bronze – it was apparent he was not going through the motions at all.
Michael Phelps revealed that he had to hold back tears as he took to an Olympic podium for the final time on Saturday, having battled with his emotions throughout his last day as an Olympian. I’ve had the opportunity to be on some of the greatest relays of all time.
That was not a picture presented before by Phelps, not as a young striver in his first Olympics at 15 in Sydney in 2000, not in Athens in 2004 where he arrived working his way up into the heavyweights alongside Ian Thorpe and Pieter van den Hoogenband. “I think he’s in such a good place personally he doesn’t need it”. I’ve lived a dream come true. At the end of the competition, Phelps announced his retirement from competitive swimming but returned just a year later.
He added that he was “really looking forward” to the “beginning of a new journey”.
It is also apparent, however, he has not been able to elevate it much beyond what it has been – something people only care about during Olympic years and he knows he has work to do.
The final two individual golds of the games went to Pernille Blume of Denmark in the 50 free, her country’s first swimming victory since 1948, and Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri in the grueling 1,500 free. Connor Jaeger of the United States took silver in 14:39.48, while the bronze went to another Italian, Gabriele Detti, in 14:40.86.
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Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
