Produced by Coleman Hodges.
Reported by Anne Lepesant.
Michael Phelps of North Baltimore Aquatic Club rose to the challenge put forth by Chad Le Clos, after his gold-medal performance of 50.56 in the 100m butterfly at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan, and posted yet another World-leading time, winning the U.S. National title in 50.45. That beat Le Clos’ winning time by .11.
Phelps was relatively slow off the blocks, but he made up for it with an incredible wall at the 50 and perhaps the best second-half of his career.
r 0.81 │ 24.10 / 26.35 = 50.45
Le Clos’ splits in Kazan, by comparison, were:
r 0.64 │ 23.72 / 26.84 = 50.56
After his win, Le Clos threw down the gauntlet, saying amongst other things, “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.”
too cocky for my taste…
1.32 in broken IM in 200Yards is possible for someone like Phelps guys
200yards are 184metters so if it was 200Meters his broken time should be around 1.37-1.38 which can be 15-17sec slower
It’s impressive and im waiting to see 200IM in 2016 Olympic games
I just watched the video here and like the other commenter noted…that pretty casual after the fact mention of a broken 200 IM SCY in 1:32.
1:32??????!
Watching the 100 fly final at worlds over a few times…if Shields’s first 25 meters wasn’t such a mess he’d have won. His turn and underwater was phenomenal and he held his stroke to the end. If course that sounds like sour grapes, but my point is the U.S. had on flyer who could have been 50.4 and another who was 50.4 and could easily have been 50.1-50.0 right now.
I think it is a given Phelps will be under 50 next year and to beat Shields for silver will take a 50.3. I like these two for gold and silver.
Very good man
What I find is that while Le Clos took offense at Phelps stating facts about the state of swimming, Phelps WAS objectively right.
In 2011 at worlds it took a 1:54 to medal. In 2012 it took a 1:53 LOW to claim bronze, and 4th was 1:54 mid-low. It took under 1:56 to final in 2011 and required a blazing 1:55.1 to just final in 2012.
For comparison, in 2013 only a 1:54 was needed to win, a 1:55 to medal (which would have almost missed the London final) and a 1:56.1 to final. In 2014 1st in the world was still 1:54, and 3rd in the world was still a pedestrian 1:55.0 again almost missing the ’12… Read more »
Nice back and forth guys
I think MP is gonna break WR 200im 😉