United States swimmer Michael Phelps makes history with his 19th Olympic medal

Olympic history was made last night. United States swimmer Michael Phelps won his 19th Olympic medal, breaking a record that was set nearly 60 years ago by Soviet Union gymnast Larisa Latynina. It didn’t come to Phelps as easy as most thought would happen. Most thought that Phelps would have two easy gold medals in the events that he was participating that day in but South African swimmer Chad le Clos beat Phelps in the 200m butterfly by a mere .05 seconds. The ironic part of that whole event is that 20-year-old le Clos is a swimmer who sees Phelps as his hero, dating back to the 2004 Olympics in Athens when a young le Clos was inspired to swim because of Phelps. Silver is definitely a disappointment for Phelps (only his second) but he had a chance to redeem himself later last night where he participated as the anchor for the US in the 4×200 relay event.

This time there was little doubt that the United States team would take gold, as Phelps would cruise to victory knowing that he was making history. By medal count, Phelps is the greatest Olympian of all time but that’s a whole other debate in itself. Right now Michael Phelps can go celebrate (we all know how he’ll be doing that) and bask in the moment. By the way, he still has three more events where he can win a medal so stay tuned. Speaking of medals, if you haven’t been paying close attention to the Olympics here are the countries with the most medals as of 8:30am ET in the US.

USA - 24 medals (9 gold, 8 silver, 7 bronze)
China - 23 medals (13 gold, 6 silver, 4 bronze)
Japan - 13 medals (1 gold, 4 silver, 8 bronze)
France – 11 medals (4 gold, 3 silver, 4 bronze)
Germany, South Korea, Italy and Russia are all tied with 8 medals