Masato Sakai claimed silver after coming out of nowhere to nearly deny Michael Phelps his 20th Olympic gold medal in the men’s 200-meter butterfly at the Rio Games on Tuesday. “I think something needs to be done”, he said.
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This is the third gold medal in 200 fly in Phelps’ career (Athens, 2004; Beijing, 2008).
Late-career Michael Phelps may be the best Michael Phelps of all. Hungary’s Tamas Kenderesi closed well to swim a time of 1:53.62 and take the bronze.
Katinka Hosszu claimed her third gold medal of the Games by winning the individual 200-meter medley after setting a new Olympic record.
Phelps reclaimed the title with a block to wall victory in one minute 53.36 seconds, reigning supreme before celebrating with his mum Debbie, fiance Nicole and infant son Boomer.
Gymnast McKayla Maroney inspired an internet meme after winning a silver medal at the 2012 London games.
“It feels like gold that I’m after her”, she said of Ledecky.
Team USA has won the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay on 17 occasions at the Olympic Games, a record for most wins by one country in a single swimming event.
Four years ago, Phelps mistimed his finish in the swooping stroke he does better than anyone, gliding to the wall a little too long after his final stroke. Lochte, a three-time Olympian, victor of five gold medals, and world-record holder in the 4x200m freestyle relay, is better known for his bad interviews, sexual exploits, and reality TV show than for his swimming prowess.
Le Clos, 24, finished fourth and was well shy of defending his Olympic title. The Hungarian had not won an Olympic medal in three previous Games but has won three golds in the past four days.
Usually one of NBC’s showcase events, the women’s gymnastics team competition was drained of all suspense by the excellence of the US gold medal quintet. Conor Dwyer, Townley Haas and Ryan Lochte made sure of that, handing off a commanding lead to the most decorated athlete in Olympic history.
Britain’s Stephen Milne, Duncan Scott, Dan Wallace and James Guy took silver, 2.47sec behind the United States of America, and Japan’s Kosuke Hagino, Naito Ehara, Yuki Kobori and Takeshi Matsuda pocketed bronze, 2.84sec further back.
Ledecky laughed as she thought back to the moment.
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Elsewhere in the pool, Katie Ledecky of the USA came out on top of her clash of the titans with Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom, winning the women’s 200 freestyle final in 1:53.73. American Maya DiRado and Britain’s Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, who was fastest in the semifinals, appear to be the most serious challengers to the “Iron Lady”. She said she almost threw up in the final 50, but gulped it back and finished in 1:53.73, comfortably ahead of Sarah Sjostrom who finished in 1:54.08. “It was a burp with 25 to go, but I’ve been in that position plenty of times before in practice and I knew I could accelerate to the wall”.
