Rio de Janeiro - The rivalry between Chad le Clos and American swimming legend Michael Phelps is to reach boiling point when the two swimming heavyweights face off in Tuesday night’s 200m butterfly final at the Rio Olympic Games.
Their verbal sparring from 2015 spilled over into a shadow boxing on the eve of the big rematch as Le Clos look to defend his title.
Le Clos was caught on camera shadow boxing in the call room within a few metres of Phelps ahead of their 200m butterfly semi-final.
Phelps sat motionless staring in front of him and looking unimpressed by the South African’s moves.
During his press conference Le Clos was asked about the clip he said: “Oh, did they catch that? Damn!”
“I don't know, I just do what I need to do. The call room is what it is. It is a difficult place with a lot of tension especially before a final.”
Four years ago at the London Games the two exchanged backslaps but the relationships has turned frosty over the last year.
Le Clos’ comments following his 100m butterfly world title swim in Kazan, Russia where he posted the fastest time in a textile suit ever touching the wall in 50.56 seconds.
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.”
The next day Phelps responded with the fastest time since his 100m butterfly winning swim at the London 2012 Games.
He accused Le Clos of talking ‘trash’ although the South African said his comments had been quoted out of context.
“From my side there is no real tension, I have no emotion when I am racing, I’ve trained hard for this and of course there is a huge rivalry between Michael and myself,” Le Clos said.
“Like I’ve said it before I have a lot of respect for him last year there was definitely spoken words when he had nationals and I had world champs a lot of it was misquoted.
“At the end of the day I am a racer, I want to beat Michael and I want to beat him. May the best man win tomorrow night.”
Independent Media