Chad Guy Bertrand le Clos is a competitive South African swimmer who participated in various national and international swimming events. Le Clos already showed potential at the age of 18. And since then, he has been determined to be the best one in the world.
2010 Youth Olympic Games
He started his long years of swimming career as early as 2010. At that time, he competed in the Youth Olympic Games held in Singapore and surprised everyone by winning five medals. He got the gold in the 200-meter IM, silver in 100 and 200-meter butterfly, and 400-meter freestyle, and also the bronze in the 4 x 100-meter freestyle relay.
Commonwealth Games
In Commonwealth Games held in Delhi, he once again showed everyone his capabilities. In the Games, he won the 200-meter butterfly and 400-meter IM and also broke the records. He got the silver in the 4 x 100 medley relay and bronze in the 4 x 200-meter freestyle relay.
Ending the competition, le Clos ended up winning the 200-meter butterfly in the Short Course Championships in Dubai.
2011 World Championships
le Clos made his personal best again during the 2011 World Championships in the 200-meter butterfly, although he only finished 5th.
2012 Olympic Games
2012 was a great momentum for le Clos, especially during the time when he had to face his childhood idol, Michael Phelps. In the Olympic Games, he competed in the 200-meter butterfly with Phelps. At the end of the day, he ended up finishing before Phelps with five one-hundredths of a second-time difference.
le Clos later admitted that aside from his desire to win the event, he also wanted to make his idol proud.
Later on, he moved to the 100-meter butterfly, a chance when he once again could meet his idol. In the end, Phelps ended up winning the gold, while le Clos got the silver medal after toughly competing against Yevgeny Korotyshkin of Russia.
However, that wasn’t the end of this winning spree. le Clos also participated in the 50 and 100-meter butterfly, where he won the silver and gold, respectively.
2013 World Championships
2013 was another great year for le Clos. During the World Championships, he won gold medals in both the 100 and 200-meter butterfly events. Sometimes later, he set a new world record in the 200-meter butterfly. Then, he broke his previous World record during the World Cup held in Singapore.
2014 Commonwealth Games
In 2014, le Clos competed in the Commonwealth Games where he got six medals in total. These six medals were golds in the 100 and 200-meter butterfly, silver in the 4 x 100-meter freestyle, and bronze in the 50-meter butterfly, 4 x 100 medley relay, and 200 IM.
Le Clos took another World Cup title in November. A month later, he showed up at the Short Course World Championships and ended up swiping the butterfly categories, and also the 200-meter freestyle. A new record was set in the 100-meter butterfly, plus the championship records in the 50 and 100-meter butterfly.
2015 World Championships
In the 2015 World Championships, Le Clos made some headlines about his performance in the event. He not only for winning various butterfly events, but he also successfully got into the 200-meter freestyle final.
Together with Sun Yang of China and Ryan Lochte of America, he made it into the final. He got a nice split, but he couldn’t perform well during the last 50 meters. He ultimately finished in 6th overall.
During this time, Le Clos was also considered the fastest swimmer in a textile suit in the 100-meter fly, along with Joseph Schooling and Laszlo Cseh. And for the event, Le Clos was the winner.
He won a silver medal in the 200-meter fly after a tough competition with Cseh, who outran him in the last 50 meters. After the World Championships, Le Clos was noted to be the fastest swimmer in the world for the 100-meter fly. In his statement, he also put some comments about Michael Phelps, who competed in the US National Championships.
However, there’s a little feud between the two of them, especially in May 2015 when Phelps told the media about how slow the 200-meter fly had been.
2016 Rio Olympics
In the 200-meter freestyle event in the 2016 Rio Olympics, Le Clos successfully got into the second position winning the silver, just slightly behind Sun Yang. His time was 1:45.20.
He continued his way 200-meter butterfly, a match when he met Phelps again. In the ready room, Le Clos seemed to provoke Phelps using Muhammad Ali’s moves, although Phelps didn’t care a bit about it. The match ended up with Le Clos finishing in 4th.
However, the feud ended at a podium where Le Clos and Phelps stood together with Laszlo Cseh.
2017 World Championships
A year later, Le Clos participated in the 2017 World Olympics. That time, he competed in the 200-meter butterfly where he regained his world title. After going extra right from the start, Le Clos ended up winning a gold.
Commonwealth Games
In the same year, Le Clos won several medals winning the first in the 50-meter butterfly, going second in the 100-meter freestyle, and third in the 4 x 100 medley relay. He also set new Game records for both the 100-meter butterfly and 200-meter butterfly with the time of 50.65 and 1:54.00, respectively.
2018 Short Course World Championships
In the competition, Le Clos competed in the 200-meter butterfly on the first day. He won a silver by finishing second in 1:48.32, a new personal best and African record. On the next day, he participated in the 200-meter freestyle despite only finishing in 10th.
On the third day, Le Clos won the 100-meter fly, successfully defending his title. He went for the 50-meter fly and won the silver medal. The final day closed by earning a bronze medal in the 100-meter freestyle.
2019 World Championships
During the Championships, Le Clos won his first medal by winning a bronze in the 200-meter fly. Later on, he got the bronze in the 100-meter fly with a time recorded at 51.16.
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