I'm not sure "lots of guys" is the proper descrip. Only 2 other guys have gone under 1:53 in the last 4 yrs: Cseh and Le Clos.

All Time Top Performances - 200 Fly
1:51.51 Phelps 07/29/09
1:52.03 Phelps 08/13/08
1:52.09 Phelps 03/28/07
1:52.20 Phelps 07/02/08
1:52.70 Cseh 08/13/08
1:52.76 Phelps 07/08/09
1:52.91 Cseh 05/09/16
1:52.94 Phelps 08/07/15
1:52.96 le Clos 07/28/12
1:52.97 Matsuda 08/13/08

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I have to disagree with you, as I feel Le Clos was definitely planned. He was trying to get into Phelps head and show some confidence. Stupid move. As far as Phelps looking mean, the best all ARE mean. In our circle, I've seen the "assassin" in sweet Michelle Jones, PNF, Crowie, Macca, Stadler, Frodo, Kienle.....and on and on. There are very few athletes who do not have that killer instinct.

I'm talking about phelps post-race, not pre race game face stuff.

Before the race, dance, shadowbox, stare, whatever you need to do. Sacrifice a chicken if you have to.

But all that shit is done once you touch the wall at the finish.

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(Quote) "My guess is...he (Phelps) will be back. He seems like a lifer. While he did just fine, he shouldn't have been on the 800 free relay last night. He really enjoys the spotlight. He is one of the top 5 or so 100 freestylers in the world right now and he hasn't trained for it. So I'd love for him to do that event." (Quote)

Phelps went about a half sec faster in the final than Conger did in the prelims, so the coaches prob made the right call. Besides, Conger still gets the gold medal and, if anyone asks, he can just say he was replaced by Phelps, whom virtually everyone on the planet has heard of, excepting perhaps some hunter-gatherers in the Amazon or on an island in the Pacific. :)

From Swimswam:

GOLD: United States – 7:00.66

Conor Dwyer – 1:45.23
Townley Hass – 1:44.14
Ryan Lochte – 1:46.03
Michael Phelps – 1:45.26

An easy win (predictably) for Team USA–it helps when you have three of the five fastest splits in the event. The front half of the relay was as good as you could ask for; Conor Dwyer was right on his personal best, and Townley Haas turned in the fastest split in the entire field (an incredible 1:44.14). By the time Haas was done, the lead was stretched to two full seconds, with two of the world’s greatest swimmers about to hit the water.

There were some major grumblings around the absence of Jack Conger in the final; Michael Phelps was added to the final relay, despite not swimming the 200 freestyle at Olympic Trials. In addition, Conger actually out-split Ryan Lochte in prelims, but Lochte played it very safe on the start and didn’t have any competition as the preliminary anchor leg. After his 47.12 split in the 4×100 freestyle relay, there’s no question Michael Phelps belonged on this relay, and he backed it up. Even after the 200 fly final, Phelps split a half-second faster than Conger or Ryan Lochte did in prelims. However, even without the hindsight of tonight’s splits, there’s arguments that Conger should have gotten the nod over Lochte, who was just a 1:46.03.


Fastest splits:

1. 1:44.14 – Townley Haas – USA
2. 1:44.85 – James Guy – Great Britain
3. 1:45.05 – Duncan Scott – Great Britain
4. 1:45.23 – Conor Dwyer – USA
5. 1:45.26 – Michael Phelps – USA
6. 1:45.34 – Kosuke Hagino – Japan
7. 1:45.37 – Mack Horton – Australia
8. 1:45.63 – David McKeon – Australia
9. 1:45.67 – Aleksandr Krasnykh – Russia

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

OK 100 fly semis today and finals tomorrow. What is Phelps going to do to Le Clos....is Le Clos actually going to look down the pool this time instead of across the pool?

Nope.

He always looks around. Doesn't matter if phelps is in the pool or not, it's what he does. Terrible habit, and it costs him time.

Edit -darkhorse pick, joe schooling for gold.

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Can Santo squeeze into the finals for the 100 fly in his semi tonite. He has the 50 free finals 1 hour before. What's the recovery like from the 50 free?

Also Phelps is going up against Lochte for the 200 IM finals and then 30 minutes later has the 100m Fly semis. These guys are machines. Tough schedule!

The 50 free and 100 fly are both semifinals tonight.

Should be able to recover fine. 100 free was his main shot at a medal, these are all bonus swims for fun.

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Agreed. What Phelps did was pretty restrained. I imagine most of the young'uns on Slowtwitch would retreat to their safe places if they ever witnessed some post-boxing "antics" from Muhammad Ali.

Pretty sure Le Clos just patted Phelps on the back when he walked by him being interviewed post 100 fly prelim.

I guess they made up

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

It looks like Phelps just did what he needed to do for advancing after taking his 4th gold in 4 Games in a row in the 200IM. I am looking forward to tomorrow's drag race. This guy Joseph Schooling racing for Singapore was awesome. Do you guys think he can give a rested Phelps a run tomorrow? Le Clos looked like he started a bit slow today.

Schooling is the real deal, he's got speed and held n pretty well. (Good 200 fly as well as 100, but elected to scratch the 2fly for the 100 free)

He's got a shot to pull a leclos on phelps. It'll be close.

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Schooling's fly kick looks massive.

Nope. But hopefully he'll get to try again in 2020 :)

Phelps was much more restrained after the 200IM win. I really wouldn't be surprised if either Bob B or Debbie P talked to him about it...

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Or he read your post, felt bad and didn't want to upset you again.

That's the most plausible explanation.

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Or, he was more restrained after winning the 200 IM because it was never really in doubt, his main rival (Lochte) is a friend and teammate who wasn't showing his ass in the ready room, and the others who medaled weren't acting like turds. Le CLos on the other hand, needed to be put in his place and reminded of who the GOAT is.

By the way, if Phelps wins the 100 fly and wins another gold on the medley relay, then he will personally have more golds than the entire country of South Africa has earned in all Olympics combined. So when South African Le Clos starts talking smack...

Excuse me, but can you please not throw all of South Africa under the bus on this one. Phelps has more medals in this games than the majority of countries already, so South Africa is in good company. At the rate we are going Phelps + Ledecky will have more gold medals in the pool than all of Germany across sports. And in fairness LeClos was a sportstman in defeat.

One more thing.....South Africa would have a lot more medals all time. Sometimes athletes are born in the wrong time in the wrong country. Lots of really great South Africans who were not racists had no opportunity to race internationally for decades. Close to home my 2 best examples are Simon Lessing and Paula Newby Fraser. The former had to race for Great Britain and the latter for Zimbabwe....not Olympics sports but they are great examples of super athletes who also don't have a sliver of racism in them who were prisoners in their own land for a long time. PNF basically came out of Durban was racing for Zimbabwe and lit the world on fire at Kona 89. So please let's not do the chest pounding on how much South Africa sucks compared to Phelps. The all time Kona "wins" goes to a girl who grew up doing triathlon in Durban. Most ITU World Championships...also a guy from Durban.

Anyway, onto tonite's final. Jason in Halifax says schooling is the real deal and could challenge Phelps. The way Phelps swam is 100m leg in the relay, I'd be surprised if anyone can match that type of a closing effort. I think he did just enough yesterday to qualify. Someone tell leClos to keep his head and boy straight tonite!

Is this alledged Le Clos asshattery to do with him doing his little shadowboxing routine or is there more to it. He's a bit eccentric but he wasn't even directly facing Phelps when he was doing it from what you can see in the little twittervid.

The way Phelps swam the 200IM... I think he should consider taking a year off, 2 years light, and make a comeback just for that event and maybe a relay if he can earn the spot. Hell, he won by nearly 2 seconds!

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Yes, watching it live he was messing with Phelps in the ready room Or so it seemed. On deck he kept starring at Phelps. In the pool he got smacked down.

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"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "

There's a little more to it, a minor twitter spat last year. As best I can recall it went something like this....

Phelps called out the butterfliers saying that no-one had swum a fast time since he retired.

LeClos swam a fast time at Worlds, and said that Phelps could be quiet now.

Phelps then swam slightly faster at US Nats (apparently he used LeClos' comment as motivation)

Le Clos said that it is different swimming fast at Nationals with not that much competition, and swimming fast when you have another fast guy (i.e. Le Clos) breathing down your neck. Le Clos was right, look at how the Aussies have failed to perform in Rio.

Le Clos did his dancing / shadowboxing routine. Odd , but so what?.

Through it all, he's maintained that Phelps is his hero.

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Aye I'm aware of some of the history between Le Clos and Phelps and of course it's nice to just shut someone like that up in the pool. Just seemed a bit blown out of proportion to me, American media probably to blame for that.

Phelps was great last night, the way he dragged himself out of the pool after the 200IM i was like yikes. Seemed rather dead. He also seemed to take his time during the medal ceremony! Can't blame him ofcourse. Didn't he skip some ceremonies in Beijing with the crazy gauntlet he ran? No way he was gonna skip this one obviously.

All I'm saying is, he acted like a buffoon and needed to check himself. Phelps could spot him 9 golds and STILL have more than Le Clos.
I'm all for having confidence in yourself, but he had a choice on how he was going to express that confidence...


...and he chose poorly.