Winner United States’ Michael Phelps celebrates with his gold medal after the men’s 200-meter butterfly during the swimming competitions at the 2016 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
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The win took Phelps, who celebrated by wagging a solitary finger before sitting on a lane rope with his arms outstretched, to 20 golds -more than Jamaica had achieved in their entire Olympic history, befitting with the other dominant figure of the modern Olympics, Usain Bolt, among those watching in the stands.
For Phelps, the butterfly victory was especially sweet after the sting of the London defeat, where he misjudged his final lunge for the wall to let Le Clos steal the gold medal.
Somebody even changed le Clos’ Wikipedia page saying “He died by the hands of Michael Phelps, being literally thrown out of water by the greatest American since Abraham Lincoln”.
When Michael Phelps tentatively announced his return to competitive swimming, his one stipulation was he would never go back to the 200 metre butterfly.
Milking the acclaim of the crowd, Phelps climbed, Wimbledon tennis-style, past a bank of poolside photographers to kiss little Boomer and fiancée Nicole Johnson after an emotional medals ceremony.
Whereas in London, the lack of a final stroke cost him the gold, Phelps inserted an extra half-stroke to make double sure, clawing for the wall as the exhaustion of being a 31-year-old swimmer against far younger men began to take its toll.
Le Clos was in the final again, thoroughly inspired himself by his mother and father, both battling cancer and in the stands cheering him on.
Phelps’ response? “There are a lot of things I could say”. It was Britain’s first medal in this event since they won a bronze in 1984, and made up for Guy’s disappointment in failing to pick up a medal in the 200m and 400m freestyle.
On Tuesday night, in one of the most anticipated swim races of these Rio Olympics, Phelps and le Clos duked it out in a final le Clos predicted last summer would be “Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier”. That was the first time after the race.
On Sunday the came closer than anyone has ever done wearing textile suits, when the quartet of Caeleb Dressel, Phelps, Ryan Held and 100m freestyle world champion Nathan Adrian clocked 3:09.92. Now, the internet has passed the Olympic meme torch to Phelps.
The 35-year-old Anthony Ervin, who won 4×100 relay silver in 2000, swum in the heats to collect another medal 16 years after his first.
The victory maintained a run of USA success in the event, with the Americans medalling in every 4×100 freestyle relay raced at the Games since it was first included in 1964.
He will also swim the 100m butterfly and the 4x100m medley relay as he looks to finish the games with six golds.
Still, Phelps was not done, putting the finishing touch to an easy win in the 4x200m free, cruising home nearly two and a half seconds ahead of Britain’s James Guy in the swimming equivalent of baseball’s home-run trot around the bases.
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Britain’s Siobhan-Marie O’Connor took silver in 2:06.88. It came on a night that American teammate Katie Ledecky picked up her second gold of the Rio Olympics on the way to what could be a historic run of her own in the pool. Emma McKeon of Australia won the bronze medal. “That was a really tough race and it hurt really badly”, said Ledecky.
