That wasn’t enough to slow the gritty teenager.
Advertisement
Ledecky, who shattered the 400m freestyle world record in winning gold on Sunday, was second at the 100m mark but had moved into first at the final turn, holding off Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom with Australia’s Emma McKeon claiming bronze.
Ledecky was coming through the media mixed zone as Phelps was diving in for the 200-meter butterfly.
The 19-year-old has never lost in a major global race …
“The really tough one’s done”.
“That hurt pretty badly”, Ledecky said. “It’s the closest I’ve come to throwing up at the end of a race”. “I just knew I had to fight and get to the wall”, she said.
Her 1:53.73 time edged out Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom, victor of the 100-meter butterfly in Rio, by about four-tenths of a second. Her clean and jerk lift also broke her world record by 1 kilogram. Ledecky had a shot to win the race that is, for her, the object that is different from all the others. “Just being able to see the number one next to my name again, one more time in the 200 fly”, says Phelps, “couldn’t have scripted it any better”.
“Going into the finish I said, ‘If I have to take a half-stroke, I’m going to take a half stroke, ‘” Phelps said.
Conor Dwyer, Townley Haas and Ryan Lochte went out ahead of Phelps, handing off a commanding lead to the most decorated athlete in Olympic history. “It just feels good that it’s over”.
Advertisement
The Americans’ second straight Olympic triumph was never in doubt, their score of 184.897 at the Rio Games more than eight points clear of the field. On top of the sport in four freestyle events at last summer’s World Championships in Kazan, and likely three in Rio, her foes must be posing questions to themselves: Is she beatable?
