On Thursday night, Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte competed against each other in what is nearly certainly the last time in the Olympics, with Phelps winning the gold in the 200 individual medley.
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The medal extends Phelps’ Olympic record to 26 career medals, including 22 golds.
Japan’s Kosuke Hagino took the silver, while China’s Wang Shun claimed the bronze.
Wednesday: 200-meter individual medley heats, 10:09 a.m. / 200-meter individual medley semifinals, 7:29 p.m.
Unlike Phelps, he does not have two more chances (the 200 meter IM and the 100 meter fly) at the Rio Olympics to surpass this tally.
His gold also marks the first time a swimmer earned at least three gold medals in four different Olympic Games.
But in 2014, Phelps had a change of heart and made a decision to compete in the 200m butterfly, specifically because he thought the field was slow and he had a chance to win gold.
Referring to the stance taken by King, his 19-year-old team-mate, Phelps said: ‘You’re probably going to see people speaking up more.
RATINGS: NBC said its Olympic audience reached parity with the London Games for the first time on the third night of competition – with an asterisk.
“This is exactly how I want to exit the sport”. The American finished the final in 1 minute 54.66 seconds, nearly two seconds ahead of Japan’s Kosuke Hagino. He’s also won silver medals at the 2011 World Championships and, following his return from retirement, at the 2014 Pan Pacific Championships.
“We’ll hang out because swimming doesn’t dictate our friendship”, Lochte said.
Lochte has been non-committal about whether Rio is his last Olympics.
It was another performance for the ages, but Phelps has done it so many times that nothing else would have been fitting.
Tuesday night belonged to the American swimming team. He’s the toughest competitor and racer I’ve ever had to go up against. Mitch Larkin of Australia takes silver and Evgeny Rylov of Russian Federation gets bronze. The winning time was 2:20.30.
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With his undisputed string of successes, Phelps appeared to have matched the ancient athletic record of an equally competitive Olympian named Leonidas of Rhodes more than 2, 000 years ago.
