Talks of mutual admiration between South Africa’s golden boy Chad le Clos and American global superstar Michael Phelps has turned into verbal sparring as the two are on a mouthwatering collision course at this year’s Rio Olympic Games.
Four years is a long time and a lot has changed since Le Clos caused one of the upsets of the London Olympic Games by out-touching Phelps by just 0.05 seconds in the 200m butterfly usurping the king of swimming of his throne.
Phelps has since retired from swimming, made his comeback, and become a family man while Le Clos launched a reign of terror in his absence.
Le Clos won every long-course butterfly event since London until last year’s Fina World Championships in Kazan, Russia where Hungarian Laszlo Cseh won the prized 200m event.
Although they have not met in the pool since 2012, Le Clos and Phelps have been embroiled in a tit-for-tat battle in the pool with Cseh behaving like the third dog getting the bone.
World record holder Michael Phelps fired a few salvos across the Bering Strait while Le Clos and Cseh arm-wrestled at the World Championships.
Phelps clocked 1:52.94, the fastest 200m butterfly since he set the world record in 2009 at the US Nationals in San Antonio a few days later.
Le Clos responded with a statement of his own reclaiming his 100m butterfly title in the fastest time in a textile suit ever clocking 50.56 seconds.
The friendly exchanges between the two heavyweights of international swimming seemed to have been a distant memory in 2015 as they swapped verbal blows.
Following the race Le Clos was quoted saying: “Michael Phelps has been talking about how slow the butterfly events have been recently. I just did a time he hasn’t done in four years. So he can keep quiet now.”
Le Clos maintains he had been quoted out of context but still got a reaction out of Phelps as the American clocked a time of 50.45s which was faster than his Olympic 100m butterfly winning time.
“It’s just going to fuel me, if you want to do it go for it, I smile at some (comments) and get serious about other comments but they are just comments and has nothing to do with me,” Phelps said afterwards.
“The 200m fly was a weak event before this year, I don’t do it to talk trash, I do it to state facts and I know some people went back to check my facts after that stuff I said about the 200m fly and I was right.”
The trio are preparing themselves for a battle royal at the Games, and the eventual may have to dismantle Phelps’ record of 1:51.51 he set during the super-suits era in 2009.
Cseh again reminded Phelps and Le Clos that it will not be a two-horse race in Rio when he dropped the fastest time in a textile suit since Phelps’ record clocing 1:52.91 at the European Championships in London in the same pool as the 2012 Games.
The 100m butterfly will be an equally close tussle between these three swimmers with only 0.41 seconds separating Phelps’ time of 50.45s from last year and Cseh, who lay down an early marker with his world-leading time of 50.86s in London. - Independent Media