Chad le Clos became South Africa’s most decorated Olympian in their 112-year history with his silver in the 100m butterfly on Friday.
Le Clos wasn’t in the top three at the halfway mark of the race, but recovered to second with a time of 51:14. Staunch rival Michael Phelps and Lazlo Cseh of Hungary finished with the same time as Le Clos, affording all three silver. Joseph Schooling of Singapore secured gold.
The 24-year-old le Clos won silver in the 200-metre freestyle earlier this week, but finished a mere fourth in the 200-metre butterfly – a race he famously won at the London Games four years ago.
“I’ll take it on the chin, I’ll assess it and I’ll move on. I’ve moved on already. I let a lot of people down, I let my country down. I should have definitely won that race. There was no reason to swim that slow. Maybe the hype got to me,” he said.
“If I came second in the final and produced my best time, c’est la vie, but to lose with a 54.0 is disgraceful from my side. I don’t accept defeat like that at this level. But, this is not the end of my 200-metre career.
“The first couple of hours after the race were the toughest part. As much as I wanted to cry, I really did, I must be honest, I didn’t. Worse things have happened to me this year – and this isn’t even the fifth worst thing to have happened in the last few months.”
The silver gave Le Clos a fourth Olympic medal – the most by any South African since the country first contested an Olympic Games back in St Louis, USA in 1904.
Friday’s achievement weighed in as South Africa’s fifth medal of the Rio Games, after swimmer Cameron van der Burgh came second in the men’s 100-metre breaststroke, Lawrence Brittain and Shaun Keeling secured silver in the men’s rowing pairs – and captain Kyle Brown and company settled for bronze in the men’s rugby sevens.
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