For Chad le Clos, winning butterfly events may have become more difficult with Michael Phelps now out of the competition pool.
“It’s crazy. I actually never thought of that, to be honest,” Le Clos said of the situation in a Zoom call last week from a hotel in Budapest, where he is spending a month and a half competing in the International Swimming League (ISL) for the Energy Standard Swim Club. “I would rather have it this way than any other way.”
Le Clos, who upset Phelps in the 2012 Olympic 200m fly to launch a gripping rivalry, is now trying to chase down two younger fliers who broke Phelps’ world records at the 2019 World Championships.