Phelps again took the gold in the 200 individual medley. So after Phelps won his second gold medal of these Games and vanquished le Clos, who finished fourth, he seemed to defy anyone to come and beat him. During the medal ceremony that followed, Phelps showed more of the emotion that we saw from him after he won his 25th medal, two days ago.
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Ryan Lochte swam what may have been his last race against Michael Phelps at the Olympics in Rio on Thursday night. His 95-year-old Cuban-American grandmother, however, is proving to be his strongest supporter from her nursing home in the U.S.
“I’ve got a clear head, I will respond”, he told reporters after qualifying for the Olympic 100 meters butterfly semifinals.
“It’s going to take a flawless performance in order to beat him just because of how tough a competitor he is”, Lochte said.
“Him and I have duked it out back and forth, back and forth”, Phelps said.
Swimming legend Michael Phelps might have lost four times in heats and semi-finals in Rio – most recently to Singapore’s Joseph Schooling in the 100m butterfly heats earlier on Thursday.
“The biggest thing for me through the meet so far is I’ve been able to kind of finish how I wanted to”.
The win also surpasses a 2,168 year old record, held by Leonidas since 152 BC, who won 12 individual events over four Olympics.
This is a race that, like some others, Phelps has dominated over the past dozen years.
“I guess I just didn’t have it tonight”, he said. I consider that Ryan and I have probably grown closer together as friends this year than we have in the past.
“To lose in a 54.0 (1.54.06) is disgraceful from my side”.
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Phelps became the third Olympian to win the same individual event at four straight Games, joining discus thrower Al Oerter and Carl Lewis in the long jump in achieving the feat. The 31-year-old fell off the pace just a little in the last 100 metres, to elude what would have been a world record set under awesome circumstances.
