Phelps and Biles: America’s legends
The scale of Michael Phelps’s success is still hard to process, said Daniel Schofield in The Daily Telegraph. With five golds and a silver in Rio, the 31-year-old American took “a chainsaw to a forest of records”: the most decorated Olympian ever, most golds (23), most medals (28), “only swimmer to have won the same event in four Olympics”. Incredibly, his 13 golds in individual events beat the record of 12 held by Leonidas of Rhodes for 2,168 years. In the history of the summer Olympics, just 37 countries have taken home more medals than Phelps. Competing for the last time before he retires, he “timed his exit to perfection”.
The US may be losing Phelps, but in Simone Biles it has a new Olympic superstar, said Aimee Lewis on BBC Sport online. With four gold medals and a bronze under her belt, the 19-year-old is already being hailed as the most talented gymnast in history. Just 4ft 9in, she is the shortest American athlete in Rio – yet she “defies the Earth’s forces like no other athlete in history”. No female gymnast has ever had her power, or reached “such soaring heights”: Biles can leap a foot or two higher than her rivals. At the peak of her “jaw-dropping” signature move, “The Biles”, she clears nearly twice her height with a double backward somersault, followed by a half-twist and a blind landing. And in a fraught, intense sport, Biles is famous for smiling – “no one else looks like they’re having so much fun”.