We all saw it. Michael Phelps' death stare. The face that unraveled so many memes and the hashtag #phelpsface. Phelps, the greatest swimmer the world has ever seen was burning holes through le Clos' back as he shadow boxed his way through his warm up. But what is the story behind that look on Phelps' face? Why was he staring daggers towards Chad le Clos?
The le Clos-Phelps rivalry started in the London Olympics of 2012. The South African, then 20 years old, surprised us all when he upset the great Baltimore Shark in 200m butterfly, touching the wall 0.05 seconds before Phelps, so winning his first golden olympic medal. This was Phelps' first international loss in that event in a decade. Even so, the pair ended the Olympics in good terms, and were even planning a trip to shark cave dive together (cool, uh?). Phelps retired and le Clos was rising as his sucesor in this event.
But...
Phelps un-retired in 2014 and decided to compete the 200m butterfly, specially because he thought the field was too slow and he had a chance at winning gold. Le Clos wasn't slow in answering to this remark.
"He’s been talking a lot of smack in the media about how slow the butterfly is, so I just can’t wait until I race him," Le Clos said.
After the South African won the 100-meter butterfly at the 2015 World Championships, he said, “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.”
Eight hours later, on the other side of the world, Phelps beat le Clos' time in 100m butterfly. “There are a lot of things I could say. But I won’t,” he said after the race, “I’m going to let what I do in the pool do my talking.”
Le Clos continued to let his mouth do the talking. “I’m just very happy that he’s back to his good form, so he can’t come out and say, ‘Oh, I haven’t been training,’ or all that rubbish that he’s been talking,” le Clos said, referencing Phelps’s claims that he didn't even try in London.
Le Clos’s dad even got in on the trash talk. “However fast Michael goes, we go faster. I don’t care about his times, because I know my son is going to beat him,” he said.
Le Clos went as far as saying that if he was as good as Phelps he would conduct himself in a way that "children would look up to". Making reference to Phelps' 2014 DUI arrest and subsequent rehab.
Fast forward to Monday night in Rio, with a renewed and much changed Phelps snarling like a rottweiler as le Clos danced around the ready room. After the race, in which Phelps beat le Clos by more than a second, he was asked about his rival’s dancing. “He does his thing, I do my thing,” Phelps said.
This is the moment when Chad knew he was going down:
I will say no more. Le Clos should have known better than to mess with a shark!
