“This moment is not about me, it’s all about my coaches my friends my family that believed that when I was a six year old kid that I could do it”, he said. “I just opened my mouth”. “Chad and I have had some races over the last four years and Laszlo and I – I can’t even remember when I first raced him.so it’s kind of special and a decent way to finish my last individual race”.
Advertisement
After the medal ceremony, the pair was deep in conversation on the pool deck, and Schooling said he told Phelps the feeling was “out of this world”. “I wanted to change the sport of swimming”.
The youthful looking Schooling might be unknown to the rest of the world, but in swimming circles he has solid credentials. Over the course of five Olympic Games and numerous world championships, he’s simply been the best. He’ll need some help from his teammates to do it – he leads off with the butterfly leg of the 400 medley relay on the final night of swimming Saturday.
Phelps dove into the pool in second place.
Lochte has already stated that he’s going to come back for more, and with the friendly rivalry between the two swimmers, it’d be hard to imagine him competing in an Olympic Games without Phelps.
Schooling was just getting warmed up.
He won gold in an Olympic-record 50.39 seconds, leaving Phelps, Le Clos and Cseh in his wake.
Connor Jaeger gave the USA another silver in the 1,500 free, leaving the American with 33 swimming medals in Rio matching the highest total since the boycotted Los Angeles Games in 1984.
“I don’t think I’m anywhere close to these three guys next to me”, Schooling said. “A real roller coaster ride and a real fun one, too”.
“This whole day has been kind of insane because it’s all of these little last things that I’ve gotten to do, like my last warmup with the girls at the training pool”, DiRado said. “He looked at me, he smiled and it’s just, ‘I know'”.
At the medalists’ news conference, Phelps urged reporters to ask Schooling some questions.
“Getting off the bus walking into the pool tonight I nearly felt myself starting to cry”, said Phelps. “I’ve been able to watch him grow and turn into the swimmer that he is”.
Sweden coach Pia Sundhage, who coached the US team to Olympic gold medals in Beijing and London, quipped: “It’s OK to be a coward if you win”. He’ll have to give back $150,000 USA to the National Sports Association for future training and development.
In London, Singapore won two bronze medals in table tennis.
“I’m happy”, Phelps said.
While Phelps wasn’t all that persuasive when he first retired after the 2012 London Games – and, indeed, he began eyeing a return to swimming about a year later – the big hug for Schooling and the huge smile when it was done told a different story this time.
After posting the top time in both the preliminaries and the semifinals, Blume came through again on the final night of swimming at the Rio Games. “Were the papers here, I’d sign them tomorrow”.
Advertisement
“No matter what country you swim for, you’re indebted to Michael Phelps for bringing a lot of exposure to the sport and making it a little more mainstream”, Murphy said.
