BREAKING : Michael Phelps Wins His Record 21th Gold Medal
Espn Reports
Make that 21 career Olympic gold medals for Michael Phelps.
Less than an hour after winning the men’s 200-meter butterfly final, the winningest Olympian of all time anchored the men’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay to a win in 7 minutes, 00.66 seconds.
The result was no longer in doubt by the time Phelps dived in. Conor Dwyer, Townley Haas and Ryan Lochte made sure of that, handing off a commanding lead to the most decorated athlete in Olympic history.
Phelps essentially spent the next 100 seconds or so on a victory lap, the crowd’s cheers growing louder with each stroke. He touched in 7 minutes, 0.66 seconds, a full body length ahead of Britain’s James Guy.
The British earned silver in 7:03.13, while Japan took the bronze in 7:03.50.
When it was done, Phelps simply sat on the starting block, thoroughly exhausted. He motioned at his neck as though he had nothing left to give.
Tuesday capped another amazing day for the star swimmer at the Olympics.
After touching the wall first in the 200 butterfly — barely — he held up one finger. Then he sat on a lane rope, egging on the roaring crowd at the Olympic Aquatics Center with both hands, before emphatically pumping his fist in the direction of his fiancée and their infant son.
Once again, the gold medal in the 200-meter butterfly belonged to Phelps.
Making up for one of the few losses in his staggering career, Phelps held off Japan’s Masato Sakai by a mere four-hundredths of a second. The winning time was 1:53.36 seconds, but that was of little concern. The only thing that mattered was getting to the wall first.
Four years ago, Phelps mistimed his finish in the swooping stroke he does better than anyone, gliding to the wall a little too long after his final stroke. That allowed Chad le Clos of South Africa to stunningly win gold in an event that Phelps had dominated for the better part of a decade.
Phelps retired after the London Games, so it looked like he wouldn’t get a chance to make up for his defeat. But when he decided about a year later to start competing again, the 200 fly was clearly the title he wanted more than any other.
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