Phelps making his point half a world away
SAN ANTONIO — Michael Phelps never minds a little trash-talking. It just makes him go faster.
After spending all day digesting Chad le Clos’ taunts from halfway around the world, Phelps beat the South African’s time from the world championships to win the 100-meter butterfly at the U.S. national championships Saturday night.
Phelps churned through the water on the return lap, far ahead of everyone, and touched in a dazzling 50.45 seconds. He was nearly a second faster than his gold-medal winning time at the London Olympics and, more important to Phelps, he went faster than le Clos’ time about eight hours earlier in Kazan, Russia, where he won the world championship in 50.56.
“I saw the times,” Phelps said, with a knowing grin. “I saw the comments.”
Following others who have tried to get under Phelps’ skin, le Clos launched a verbal assault from Russia, apparently confident that he had put up a time Phelps couldn’t beat. And, rest assured, this thing has gotten personal, even though they are racing in different meets and aren’t likely to meet until they get to the Rio Olympics next summer.
“I’m just very happy that he’s back to his good form, so he can’t come out and say, ‘Oh, I haven’t been training’ or all that rubbish that he’s been talking,” le Clos said. “Next year is going to be Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier.”
Phelps responded with his fastest 100 fly ever, setting him up right where he wants to be heading into his yearlong Olympic preparations. After touching the wall, he turned quickly to see his time, shot a defiant look toward the packed stands in San Antonio, pounded the water with his arms and spit out a mouthful of water. Challenge answered. “There are a lot of things I could say. But I won’t,” Phelps said. “I’m going to let what I do in the pool do my talking.”
All of this is setting up a tantalizing rivalry for Rio, which actually started when le Clos stunned Phelps to capture gold in the 200 fly at the London Olympics.
In recent months, le Clos was a bit miffed when Phelps jumped back into that event with some pointed comments about the times not improving all that much while he was in retirement.
Over the past two days, they went back and forth in different meets.
On Friday night, Phelps put up a stunning time of 1:52.94 in the 200 fly, the fastest by any swimmer since he set the world record in 2009 in a high-tech bodysuit. That includes le Clos’ winning time at the last Summer Olympics and Laszlo Cseh’s performance in Kazan, where le Clos was the runner-up.
Phelps’ coach, Bob Bowman, said his swimmer takes note of everything le Clos says.
“He’s a motivation machine,” Bowman said of Phelps. “He can turn anything into motivation.”