American swimmer Ryan Lochte made the biggest splash of the London Games yesterday by obliterating his compatriot Michael Phelps, the greatest swimmer in Olympic history, in the first of their eagerly awaited duels.
Phelps, unthinkably, finished without a medal in the 400-metre individual medley.
Phelps is bidding in London to become the most prolific Olympic medal-winner in history, but may be yielding the position of world’s best swimmer to Lochte after coming only fourth in the 400-metre individual medley, where Phelps set the current world record in 2008.
Having scraped into the final by 0.07 seconds, Phelps looked way off the pace as Lochte’s silky power brought him home with time to spare.
Phelps missed out on a medal at the Olympics for the first time since he was a 15-year-old at Sydney in 2000.
