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Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Michael Phelps Wins 20th Gold Medal
Another golden win for the Olympic swimmer.
After finishing in first place during the 200-meter butterfly race Tuesday night in Rio, Michael Phelps won his 20th gold medal. He finished it in 1 minute and 53.36 seconds which is 2 seconds less than his world record at the 2009 World Championships of 1 minute 51.51 seconds.
Masato Sakai of Japan won silver being behind Phelps by 0.04 seconds. Tamas Kenderesi of Hungary took the bronze with his time of 1 minute and 53.62 seconds.
The 31 year-old swimmer was able to redeem himself against Chad el Clos of South Africa. El Clos beat Phelps by five hundredths of a second at the 2012 London Olympics in the 200-meter butterfly race where he took gold and Phelps took silver. Yesterday, El Clos finished in fourth place with time of 1 minute and 54.06 seconds.
"This is a race I really wanted tonight," Phelps told USA Swimming. "I really wanted that one bad. There are a couple of things going into the finish I just said if I have to take a half stroke, I'm taking a half stroke and when I took that half stroke I thought that was the same thing like I though in '08. I thought that cost me the race, that won me the race. I don't care about the time. I was just happy I was able to win. Doing a double like that is a lot harder now than what it once was. That is for sure. Even with an hour, that was a challenging one tonight."
The double Phelps is referring to is he had to compete in the men's 4x200 meter freestyle relay an hour later which ended in him winning his 21st gold medal, the second medal in the Olympic games so far. He ran the last leg while Conor Dwyer, Townley Haas and Ryan Lochte swam the first three legs.
Huff Post
NY Times
NBC Olympics
