In hindsight, this shouldn’t be considered a big deal, as many Olympic athletes are held to a high standard – and some may say an impossibly high standard.
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Thirty-one and back for a fifth Olympic Games four years after he said he was done with swimming for good, Phelps will get to do something for the very first time come Friday in Rio in attending the ceremony, not to mention with the flag in his hands.
Phelps says he is “humbled by the significance of carrying the flag and all that it stands for”.
Phelps, 31, was chosen late Tuesday by a vote cast by the U.S. Olympic athletes. “I want to do it”.
Phelps skimped on his training before London and, frankly, didn’t really want to be there. “We’ve had this problem for how many Olympics now – it seems nearly every time there’s something that comes up”.
He will be the first swimmer to be the flag-bearer since Gary Hall in 1976, leading the American team in Friday’s opening ceremony.
Phelps, the United States swimming juggernaut whose 22 Olympic medals include 18 golds, is usually the man inspiring awe among his fellow athletes.
Phelps retired after the London 2012 Olympics, where he took his career haul to 18 gold medals, but came out of retirement two years later.
Lochte is no longer top of the world rankings in any discipline and will compete in just the one individual event in Rio, as well as relays.
Bowman said he suggested as much to Phelps during lunch one day in San Antonio and the swimmer told him “no way”.
The Scot, who will also partner his brother Jamie in the men’s doubles in Rio, was instrumental in leading Britain to the Davis Cup title in Belgium past year – the country’s first triumph in the team event since 1936.
The Games in Brazil have been heavily overshadowed by a doping scandal, which has seen several Russian athletes banned from the Olympics, which includes essentially their entire track-and-field team. “I probably shed a little bit of tears, just of joy”.
“Spacious yet intimate, created to cross oceans and yet able to slip up rivers and into hidden harbours easily, the yacht-like Silver Cloud carries just 296 guests in incomparable comfort and style”, the Silversea website says.
“He is the greatest Olympian of all time“, said the 19-year-old Ledecky, the teenage sensation who may end up being the biggest swimming story of these Games.
The U.S. men and women’s basketball teams arrived in Rio, spent some time on their luxury cruise ship that will house them for the next 20 days and then the ladies went to work.
The last time we saw them I was 19 and in the middle of my college career.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s Djokovic”, Phelps said.
It’s the second time both teams will be housed on a cruise ship during the Olympics.
Americans will likely pick up a gold medal (or two) in beach volleyball, as they have every four years since the sport was added to the Olympic menu in 1996.
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Several users, in fact, commented on the fact that this would be the ideal opportunity for the Olympian to say goodbye to the Olympics in a proper manner without the cloud of controversy hanging over his head.
