Phelps breaks all-time Olympic medal record
Photo: Reuters
Michael Phelps became the most successful medallist in Olympic history after claiming silver in the 200m butterfly and gold in the 4x200 freestyle relay to bring his career tally to 19.
By Reuters | Eurosport
Phelps anchored his team's race and clinched gold for the United States to seal his 15th gold, with two silvers and two bronze, surpassing Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina as the most decorated Olympian of all time.
France took the silver in the relay, while China won the bronze.
The Americans were overwhelming favourites to win the relay and the result was never in doubt after Ryan Lochte gave them the lead after the lead-off leg.
Conor Dwyer and Ricky Berens kept America's lead by the time Phelps dived in for the anchor leg and he brought them home in a combined time of six minutes, 59.70 seconds.
Lochte captured his second gold medal in London after winning the 400 individual medley on the opening day of competition and the fifth of his career.
France, who upset the Americans in the 4x100 freestyle final on Saturday, took the silver medal while China grabbed the bronze after Sun Yang anchored them home.
Phelps record-tying second silver came in frustrating circumstances behind Chad Le Clos of South Africa, however, in a nail-biting finish to the men's 200m butterfly earlier in the evening.
The American swimmer led going into the last few metres of his favourite race, but was tiring rapidly and had to settle for second when Le Clos ploughed through to snatch it on the final touch by five hundredths of a second.
Takeshi Matsuda of Japan claimed bronze, 0.2 seconds behind Phelps and over a second ahead of Austria's Dinko Jukic in fourth.
Watching at poolside was Latynina, who has held the record for decades with her haul - including nine golds - from the Games at Melbourne (1956), Rome (1960) and Tokyo (1964). Latynina admitted earlier this month she had no doubt Phelps would overtake her in London and "I can only wish him well".
MEN'S 200M BUTTERFLY RESULTS:
1. Chad Le Clos (South Africa) 1:52.96
2. Michael Phelps (US) 1:53.01
3. Takeshi Matsuda (Japan) 1:53.21
4. Dinko Jukic (Austria) 1:54.35
5. Tyler Clary (US) 1:55.06
6. Velimir Stjepanovic (Serbia) 1:55.07
7. Pawel Korzeniowski (Poland) 1:55.08
8. Chen Yin (China) 1:55.18
MEN'S 4X200M FREESTYLE RELAY RESULTS:
1. U.S. Ryan Lochte/Conor Dwyer/Ricky Berens/Michael Phelps 6:59.70
2. France Amaury Leveaux/Gregory Mallet/Clement Lefert/Yannick Agnel 7:02.77
3. China Hao Yun/Li Yunqi/Jiang Haiqi/Sun Yang 7:06.30
4. Germany Paul Biedermann/Dimitri Colupaev/Tim Wallburger/Clemens Rapp 7:06.59
5. Australia Thomas Fraser-Holmes/Kenrick Monk/Ned McKendry/Ryan Napoleon 7:07.00
6. Britain Robbie Renwick/Ieuan Lloyd/Rob Bale/Ross Davenport 7:09.33
7. South Africa Darian Townsend/Sebastien Rousseau/Chad Le Clos/Jean Basson 7:09.65
8. Hungary Dominik Kozma/Laszlo Cseh/Peter Bernek/Gergo Kis 7:13.66
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Brit-twits will undoubtedly drool with rage. It belies their template of America and Americans as decadent.
Mitt is also proud. He found for them their Wembley Areana keys and pointed out how acres of empty spectator seats doesn't help the bottom line. For this helpful gesture THEY hate and hiss and snarl like wild varmits.
What? only 4 medals for the UK! Oh well at least tied with N. Korea. Way to go twits. Hugs from the victory podium.
But I would also say that Phelps has won golds in 3 separate games,
spanning 8 years, and that longevity is just as vital as the number of
medals.
Also, I would agree that swimmers have multiple events in which to compete, which demand a similar skillset, but surely athletics does too.
When people mention Carl Lewis among the greatest, I can only agree. But
what was to stop him attempting more golds by taking on further
disciplines such as the 400m and the 4x400m relay? Lewis ran the 200m,
and plenty of athletes have run the 100m and 200m or the 200m and 400m -
Bolt and Johnson respectively.
Swimming breaststroke and freestyle, or 400m freestyle and 100 butterfly
demand totally different training and muscle sets. Freestyle is an
up-down muscle set, and breaststroke is a side-to-side muscle group.
400m freestyle is a stamina event, and 100 butterfly is raw sprinting
speed.
While I would not crown Phelps as the Greatest Olympian of all time, I would not give anyone this crown. There is no need for such an absolute, and no fail-safe method of judging.
Phelps is indubitably one of the Greatest, and is in the company of Lewis, Redgrave, Latynina and Zatopek among others. They had numbers of medals, and longevity.
The only anomalous case of an athlete who I would consider one of the
Greatest is Jesse Owens, who only had one Games, due to the cancelations
of the 1940 and 1944 wartime Games.
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