Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte will square off in the 200-meter individual medley, an event in which they finished 1-2 in London four years ago. He won a gold medal in Thursday’s men’s 200-meter individual medley thanks to an unbeatable finishing kick on the freestyle portion, easily handling a field that included Lochte and silver medalist Kosuke Hagino (Japan).
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Phelps finished first approximately 6 million miles ahead of everyone, winning his 22nd gold medal, and Lochte, talented wingman with blue hair, started strong in the first heat, but finished fifth.
Phelps, who has already captured three Rio golds to take his record Olympic title haul to a staggering 21, clocked 51.60 seconds behind heat victor Joseph Schooling of Singapore (51.41sec), Hungary’s European champion Laszlo Cseh (51.52sec) and fellow American Tom Shields (51.58sec).
Now the most decorated Olympian of all time, USA swimmer Michael Phelps has racked up 26 career Olympic medals, 22 of which are gold. I’ll be back and I want him back because we push each other.
He’s got 13 individual golds and 26 medals overall.
Lochte says: “I guarantee he will be there”. Now, he’s the first swimmer ever to win the same event at four straight Olympics.
“I hope this opens a new door, opens more doors for sports in our country and hopefully I set a precedent for a lot more guys to come up”, Schooling said following his stunning triumph in Rio.
“I saw a second next to my name and then I looked up again and I looked over at Laszlo and Chad and hey we all tied”.
“I think I used too much energy in the front half and that kind of hurt me towards the end”.
Phelps has won the 100m butterfly for the last three Games, beating Le Clos to silver in 2012, but the South African has extra motivation this time.
But the “Baltimore Bullet” couldn’t add to his unparalleled 23 Olympic gold medals in the 100-meter butterfly Friday as he was beaten by outsider Joseph Schooling.
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Putting aside the disconcerting lime-like waters at the aquatics center, the focus of the Rio Games turned toward the emerald green fairways of the Olympic Golf Course on Thursday. The American phenom, who won the 400m title with a stunning world record on day two, clocked 1:53.73 to win by 0.35 seconds from Sjostrom with Australia’s Emma Mckeon taking bronze in 1:54.92.
