With all eyes on the rematch in Rio, with Phelps in lane five and Le Clos next to him, Japan’s Masato Sakai and Hungary’s Tamas Kenderesi crashed the party to collect silver and bronze.
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Sure, Phelps hogged the spotlight on this night, but let’s not forget two other very impressive swimmers.
Now he’s back, competing in the 2016 Summer Olympics at the ripe old age of 31. For an Olympic swimmer, Phelps has a lot of things under his belt, and fans hope that he can handle new challenges that would come his way.
Please SHARE if you found Michael Phelps’ game face absolutely priceless! A year later, after Phelps retired from swimming, the Associated Press reported he was “heading down to South Africa to go shark-cage diving with Le Clos”.
Biles, Raisman and Douglas finished first, second and third, respectively, in qualifying, setting up a daunting task for any other nation to challenge the US and making the show they put on a must-see event.
Asked about his expression in interviews after the race, Phelps said he wasn’t angry, just in his zone.
“It is hard because to be honest with you I don’t have that many memories of four years ago because it has been such a journey for us all since then”.
Le Clos, who clocked 1:52.96 for gold in 2012, could only manage a 1:54.06. Personally, I didn’t think the whole process did much to my back besides giving me spots that I had to answer questions about for 2 weeks, but hey, I’m also not an Olympian.
“At the end of the day I am a racer, I want to beat Michael and I want to beat him. Then after 20 minutes and they are taken off depending on what your therapist is trying to do, you just feel unbelievable release”, said Johnston. This time, he raised two fingers for the double-gold performance. According to a translation from Mashable, the host said Phelps and other athletes are “following the Hollywood trend, the method was adapted by athletes”.
The win was the 19th Olympic gold medal Phelps has earned, moving his total medal count to 23.
Silver medalist Great Britain was 2½ seconds behind because Townley Haas threw down one of the fastest splits in history on the second leg.
Lochte is the favorite to sweep the 200m individual medley- the event for which he holds the world record, four consecutive world titles, as well as three Olympic medals.
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In semifinals Tuesday night, reigning Olympic champion Nathan Adrian entered the 100 freestyle as the slowest of 16 qualifiers.
