“I haven’t had bad ones like this in in a while”, Phelps said on Sunday, a day after the relay. “I was standing on the block while Caeleb (Dressel) was coming in and I honestly thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest”. Ryan Held and Nathan Adrian fought off the French and Australians to make history in Rio. Kosovo is the 100th country to win an Olympic gold medal.
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“As fast as my teammates were, the extraterrestrial that is Phelps was faster”, said Fabien Gilot, who had the unfortunate task of swimming the second leg for the now-silver medalists.
“It’s like you walking down the street with a backpack full of weights – one by one, you just remove the weight, and that’s how I felt”.
Let’s be real, the other swimmers had no chance in this race.
Boomer gained national attention as he sat with his mother Nicole Johnson and his grandmother as they cheered on Michael from the stands during his 4×100-meter freestyle relay.
It was quite a night for the Americans, who were shut out on the golds on the opening night of swimming.
Phelps’s fellow prodigy Katie Ledecky was among the biggest winners, obliterating her own world best in the in the 400m freestyle on her way to gold. “Yet at 31, “[Michael’s] best time of 50.6 seconds in the 100-meter butterfly from the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing as a 23-year-old is only four-tenths of a second better than his best time at the 2016 US trials as a 31-year old (51 seconds)”, according to The Washington Post.
Britain’s Adam Peaty set a new global best with a win in the men’s 100m breaststroke after Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom had also broken the record in the women’s race. Thus, bringing the final result to Americans finishing at 3hrs.09mins.92 seconds, France had 3hrs.10mins.53seconds and Australia finally at 3hrs:11mins:37seconds.
Asked if he was comfortable with the fact he might never win a gold medal, he said: “I don’t know”.
She’s just getting warmed up.
In doing so, he became the first swimmer ever to claim victory at four different Games.
She could pick up another gold in the 4x200m free relay.
Ledecky kicked off the first wall with a lead of almost a body length and steadily pulled away from the overmatched field – as well as the world-record line superimposed on the video screen.
The U.S. swimmers, including silver medal victor Chase Kalisz and bronze medalist Dana Vollmer, have also adopted the practice in Rio, but they’re using a modern version of the therapy with a hand-held pump that sucks the skin away.
Peaty’s fireworks were sandwiched between two more world records – by Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom in the women’s 100m butterfly and prolific American Katie Ledecky, who obliterated her own 400m freestyle mark by nearly two seconds.
Given the form he showed in his Rio debut, five more golds are certainly within reach.
“They were making us cry”, said Phelps, who had a tear roll down his cheek while posing for photographers. It usually takes a couple days to heal. “The younger guys started crying, I started crying”.
Phelps isn’t the only Olympic athlete sporting the circular purple markings.
It was the second gold of the night for the usa after Katie Ledecky produced an astonishing performance to win gold in the 400m freestyle. He swam the second leg for the team with a split time of 47.12 seconds.
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He lost by a single point, a similar scenario to that which played out in London four years ago. “It feels good to get it back”.
