Phelps wins 19th gold, eyes 5 more
RIO DE JANEIRO—When Michael Phelps arrived in Rio as a 31-year-old swimmer who retired once and endured plenty of turmoil away from the pool, everyone wondered just how many gold medals was a realistic goal. How does six sound? In his first appearance of these Summer Games, Phelps showed he is still capable of the kind of jaw-dropping, didhe-really-just-do-that? performances that already made him the most decorated Olympic athlete of them all.
Going second in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay, Phelps produced the fastest split of his career and put the Americans out front for good against a powerhouse field that included defending champion France, Australia and Russia.
It was a down-and-back swim that showed Phelps, as usual, is in peak form on the biggest stage and perfectly capable of winning every race he enters at his fifth Olympics.
“Michael usually works this way: When one thing is good, everything is pretty good,” said his longtime coach, Bob Bowman. “It doesn’t usually work in parts. So I feel pretty good now.” He has every reason. Phelps will be back at the pool Monday for the preliminaries of the 200-meter butterfly, a title he is especially eager to reclaim after an ill-timed finish let South Africa’s Chad le Clos snatch away the gold at the 2012 London Games.
Phelps will also compete in the 100 fly and 200 individual medley, as well as two more relays.
His confidence is soaring after he turned in a time of 47.12 seconds in the relay, which was faster than all but three other swimmers in the field — all of them anchors on the medal-winning teams and specialists in the 100 free.
In fact, it was faster than any of his relay splits at the last three Olympics. Yep, even faster than the one he produced at the height of his career in 2008, when he broke Mark Spitz’s longstanding record with eight gold medals in the Great Haul of China.
“I hope that’s a good sign,” Phelps said. “I guess we’ll see over the next couple of days. But I’m very pleased with the start.”
France had high hopes for defending the title it won four years ago in London, only to be doomed by another Phelps masterpiece.
“As fast as my teammates were, the extraterrestrial that is Phelps was faster,” said Fabien Gilot, who had the unfortunate task of swimming the second leg for the now-silver medalists. (AP)