Michael Phelps has no love for Chad le Clos, a South African swimmer born in 1992 who won a gold medal in the 200m butterfly and a silver medal in the 100m butterfly at the London Olympics. Last night, Chad and Phelps shared the waiting room before their 200m butterfly semifinal and the most decorated olympian in history wasn’t having any of Chad’s shenanigans. While Chad was bouncing around like a buffoon Phelps had his hood on and was staring into his soul like a goddamn sith lord ready to murder tiny jedi kids, or Eminem right before he took the stage in 8 Mile.
While NBC was zoomed in on this moment of Phelps I was 99.99% they were just trolling us, baiting anyone to make GIFs of the moment so they could ban accounts and send takedown notices. It’s been reported by nearly every website on the World Wide Web that the IOC (International Olympic Committee) has banned the making and sharing of GIFs for the 2016 Rio Olympics, and it seemed to me that during that NBC segment they were doing anything they could to bait GIF makers into crossing the line.
As for Phelps’ role in the staredown he later downplayed his actions after finishing second in the semifinal:
One thing I’ve always loved about Phelps is that he’ll finish 2nd or 3rd in Semifinals just to crush the souls of competitors in the finals. The 200m butterfly final is tonight and both Chad and Michael will be swimming considerably faster than they did last night but Phelps has another gear he didn’t even open up last night, so I cannot wait to see him crush the competition.
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