adminPhelps won the 100m butterfly on the penultimate night of the US Olympic swimming trials on Sunday in 51.14sec to claim a fifth individual berth for London.
Phelps was nowhere near his world record of 49.82sec, but he was fastest in the world this year and ominously for his rivals, he said it was a ragged effort that could be vastly improved.
“It was a pretty crappy first 50 and a pretty terrible finish,” said Phelps, who rallied from sixth at the turn to finish ahead of Tyler McGill.
McGill was fourth at the turn, but won the battle for second in 51.32 ahead of Ryan Lochte.
“It’s done, we’re done,” Phelps said of his trials campaign, although of course he hopes the best is yet to come in London. It shows that I can do the kind of event programme like this at a high level again,” he said. “We were struggling over the last couple years at doing one event at this level. (It’’s good) being able to get a
couple under the belt this week and hopefully build off of this.” Phelps, whose unprecedented eight gold medals in Beijing four years ago took his career tally to 14, now can swim the same eight events in London: the 100m and 200m butterfly, the 200m and 400m individual medleys, the 200m freestyle and three relays.
Lochte is slated for four individual events, including showdowns with Phelps in the 200m and 400m medleys and 200m free and a title defence in the 200m backstroke, and will also see his schedule swelled by relays. Even if he’d snagged one of two Olympic spots on offer in the 100m fly, Lochte said he wouldn’t have tackled the event in London. — AFP.
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