He touched in 7 minutes, 0.66 seconds, a full body length ahead of Britain’s James Guy.
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“The last 10m, oh my gosh I thought I was standing still”, Phelps added.
The 200-meter butterfly was the first race he swam at an Olympics, at Sydney, Australia, in 2000.
Phelps spent the night before the final laughing at memes of that stare, according to his room-mate in Rio, Conor Dwyer, and the greatest swimmer of all time made it clear that of all the races in Brazil, this was the one he would not let slip away.
Us Weekly’s Cara Sprunk, who was on hand to witness Phelps’ historic moment, tells Us that Phelps’ fiancee and grandma took a moment to snap selfies with Boomer before Phelps jumped in the water.
Le Clos is on offer at 11/5 with Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh at 6/1.
At 31 – the oldest individual Olympic swimming gold medalist ever – Phelps is still the master of the pool.
He has one more race Tuesday night, anchoring the USA team in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay.
The decision indicated Phelps felt bullish about both his fitness and his freestyle stroke.
You may have missed the memo, but Phelps actually retired following London 2012, but he decided enough most definitely wasn’t enough as he came out of retirement recently to defend his titles at the Rio 2016 Olympics, and he’s done exactly that. The average finalist swam at a pace 14 seconds slower than their 400-meter and two, Irina Aksyonova (1980) and Keena Rothhammer (1972), were within 10 seconds of their projected 800-meter time based on their actual 400-meter finishes.
The 4×200 relay raised different questions, however. Phelps ripped his cap before anchoring the relay and not even that could stop him from getting gold medal number 21. Phelps was set to retire after the London Olympics, but here he is in Rio still at the top of his game.
Beyond spurring a cascade of PhelpsFace hashtags, the scene spoke to the real differences that have made Phelps-le Clos a compelling rivalry.
The teenager from suburban Washington has one more race to go, and it might be the biggest lock of all. I just do what I need to do. The swimming world was titillated last summer when le Clos took shots at Phelps after laying down a world-best time in the 100 butterfly. Phelps went on to beat le Clos in not only the preliminary heat, but also in the final race, which basically gave the Internet license to wild out and turn le Clos into the equivalent of the Rio games’ Crying Jordan treatment, from changing his Wikipedia page to zinging him with memes and hot takes on Twitter. “Athletes who use it swear by it, saying it keeps them injury-free and speeds recovery”.
“I wanted that one back”.
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Phelps finished the job on Tuesday. “We’ll work on this and we’ll come back stronger in the 200m freestyle”, said Le Clos.
