Phelps Breaks Another Wall

Michael Phelps reclaimed exuberance and added a new chapter to his legend after prevailing in the final of the 200 meter freestyle against his friend Ryan Lochte, the big loser of the day after being defeated in his two specialty races. Before returning to the pool for a rematch with his nemesis, Lochte finished third in the 200 m backstroke (1:53.94) behind fellow American Tyler Clary (1:53.41, Olympic record) and Japanese Ryosuke Irie (1:53.78).

During the first race, Phelps gave a performance and earned his first individual gold in London after staying off the podium in the 400 meter freestyle (fourth) and losing his dominance in the 200 meter butterfly to South African Chad le Clos (second). The swimmer from Baltimore also won the silver medal as a part of Team USA in the 4×100 relay and the gold in the 4×200 relay. In all, the most-decorated athlete of the Games has already stood on the Olympic podium 20 times (16 times for gold, twice for silver and twice for bronze).*

With this triumph, Phelps has become the first male swimmer to win the same competition in three different Olympic Games. Champion in Athens, Beijing and London, Phelps joins the Austrian Dawn Fraser, champion in the 100 meter freestyle in the three Games from Melbourne (1956) to Tokyo (1964), and Hungarian Krisztina Egerszegi, champion of the 200 meter backstroke during the three Games from Seoul (1988) to Atlanta (1996).

The American led the race from beginning to end and finished with a time of 1:54.27, the fastest time in the world this year, 11 hundredths of a second off of his personal record and 27 hundredths off of the world record set by his big rival in the pool at last year’s World Championships in Shanghai. Lochte, with barely enough time to recover from the disappointment he suffered minutes earlier, barely challenged Phelps’ charge in the butterfly. In the 50 meter backstroke, where he has a tendency to destroy all of his rivals, Lochte not only lost Phelps’ trail but also handed second place over to Brazilian Thiago Pereira, silver in the long race of this discipline.

The leader, the swimming phenomenon, only lost time in the breaststroke to specialist Laszlo Cseh, too far away to worry him, and swam the crawl in 27.68 seconds, the second fastest behind Lochte’s 27.53, who, in the end, took second place with a final time of 1:54.90. Cseh, silver-medal winner in Athens, won the bronze after rising two places in the last 100 meters. There was no glory for Pereira in this occasion.

Lochte, gold in the 400 meter medley and the 4×200 meter relay, silver in the 4×100 free and the 200 meter medley, joked with Phelps after leaving the pool. He was not as lighthearted after losing the 200 meter backstroke, a very fast race with three men under 1:54. Lochte barely shook Clary’s hand, the swimmer who, before his trip to London, had criticized Phelps for his lack of interest and his laziness in training. Clary, not as talented as his fellow Americans, a real “machaca,” finally got the reward for which he fought so hard, an Olympic gold.

Phelps appeared to enjoy being in the water again. The king sprints his last strokes in a great race, writing the epilogue of his heroic deed. The win against Lochte and the image of his mother Debbie and sister Hilary in the stands, both elated after seeing the tiny Michael once again enforce his law, were a blast of adrenaline in the champion’s nervous system, who took advantage of the burst to break the world record set last year in the semifinals of the 100 meter butterfly, 28 hundredths of a second faster than the record time he set in June during the Olympic Trials in Omaha. Phelps broke 51 seconds for the first time in 2012 with a time of 50.86 and sent a message to the tyrant in the 200 meter, South African Chad le Clos, with the second best time (51.42).

*Editor’s Note: After the completion of the swimming events, Michael Phelps had 22 medals.