Michael Phelps swims in the 100-meter butterfly final Friday night.
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Clearly, having a swimming career overlap with Phelps has its pros and cons. Phelps and Lochte have now swum together at the 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympic games to claim gold in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay. (Admittedly, this was only his third.) He stood on the medal stand next to Chad le Clos and Laszlo Cseh, two of his greatest rivals who touched the wall at the exact hundredth of a second Phelps did to share the silver with him.
Joseph Schooling, a 21-year-old swimmer from Singapore, beat the most decorated Olympian of all time in possibly the latter’s last individual race ever.
Schooling remembered being “shell-shocked” when his hero Phelps visited his swimming club.
This is goodbye for Michael Phelps.
“I feel fine, a little short on stroke but doesn’t really matter that much”, he said. “I’ve been able to come back and I’ve been able to accomplish things that I just dreamt of”, he said.
Phelps has reigned for so long in a career that spanned 24 years that a whole generation of new swimmers who looked up to him are now his competitors, said The Guardian. “When you race for people bigger than yourself, I think it means a lot to accomplish what you wanted to”. “I wanted to change the sport of swimming”. Clark Smith, Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz joined Lochte to get the USA into the final with the second fastest time of 7 minutes, 6.74 seconds.
He has also won 27 world championships medals in the 50-metre pool and even more in the short course (25m).
Michael Phelps has smashed every record in the modern Olympics, that historians have began to compare the American swimmer to stars of the ancient Olympic Games.
“Obviously, the first one (200 IM), I need to take care of business”, he said.
United States’ Simone Biles performs on the balance beam during the artistic gymnastics women’s team final at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016.
Considering all the jaw-dropping moments he’s manufactured this week and how he’s two races away from an all-gold, six-medal haul at these Games, it makes sense to at least wonder.
Phelps led from Pereira and Lochte at the final turn and powered on as the other two faded, opening the way for Hagino and Wang to grab the two other medals.
He added, “No more”.
If that fails, the 100m butterfly gives him a second chance to pull off the feat as he has also won that at the last three Games and holds the world record of 49.82. And come back tomorrow and try to do it.
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When Sarah Sjostrom – who has had a strong Olympics showing of her own – lost to Ledecky in the 200m freestyle earlier this week, she said she was content.
