Phelps claims 22nd gold in dominating fashion
RIO DE JANEIRO — Michael Phelps waggled four fingers, recognizing another historic achievement.
Now, he’s the first swimmer to win the same event at four consecutive Olympics.
Ryan Lochte was left in his wake every time.
In what was billed as the final showdown between two of America’s greatest swimmers, Phelps blew away Lochte — and everyone else — to win his fourth gold medal of the Rio Olympics and 22nd overall with a victory in the 200-meter individual medley Thursday.
Phelps finished a full body-length ahead of the field with total dominance on the breaststroke and freestyle legs, finishing in 1 minute, 54.66 seconds.
Lochte didn’t even make it to the podium this time, after taking two silvers and a bronze behind Phelps at the past three Olympics in the event. Japan’s Kosuke Hagino took the silver, while China’s Wang Shun claimed the bronze.
But Phelps was in a league of his own. As usual. He has one more individual event at what he insists will really be his final Olympics — remember, he already retired once — and will be looking to add a fourth consecutive gold in the 100 butterfly.
Then, he’ll close out these Olympics in the 4x100 medley relay.
There seems to be little doubt he’ll go six-for-six.
Led by Phelps, it was quite a night for the powerful American team, which picked up two more golds when Ryan Murphy completed a sweep of the men’s backstroke events in the 200 and Simone Manuel tied 16year-old Canadian Penny Oleksiak for the top spot in the 100 freestyle, stunning world-record holder Cate Campbell of Australia. Manuel is the first African-American woman to win gold in swimming.
Campbell and her younger sister, Bronte, were hoping to battle for gold after leading Australia to a victory in the 4x100 free relay.
Neither one of them made the podium. Cate was under her own world-record pace at the turn, but had nothing coming back and fell all the way to sixth. Bronte was second at the turn and slid to fourth at the finish.
Murphy extended redwhite-and-blue dominance of the backstroke events that goes back to 1992.
The Barcelona Games were the most recent time the United States lost a men’s final in those events.
Three days after winning the 100 backstroke, Murphy touched first again in 1:53.62.
Murphy became the third American man in the past five Olympics to take both races. Aaron Peirsol pulled off the sweep at Athens in 2004, while Lenny Krayzelburg claimed both golds at the 2000 Sydney Games.
The Olympics came to an end for another U.S. backstroke champion.
Missy Franklin finished 14th in the semifinals of the women’s 200 — beating out only two other swimmers. It was a far cry from the London Games, where “Missy The Missile” became only the second American woman to take four gold medals in a single Olympics.
This time, she was limited to a single gold, which came for swimming the preliminaries of the 4x200 freestyle relay.
Franklin failed to even make it to the final of her two individual events.
In the only non-American victory of the night, Rie Kaneto of Japan pulled away from Yulia Efimova to take gold in the women’s 200 breaststroke.