Post race inteview is courtesy of Brandon Franklin.
MEN’S 100 Butterfly – Reported by SwimSwam
He’s baaaaaaack. In the first comeback swim for greatest swimmer and Olympic champion of all time, Michael Phelps earned the top seed in 52.84, with friend and competitor Ryan Lochte just behind in 52.94. Both Phelps and Lochte stuck to their traditional strategies, cruising through the opening 50, rocketing off the turn wall, and kicking it into another gear down the stretch. Just to give an idea of how fast they came home for a preliminary Grand Prix race, here’s their splits, alongside the rest of the top eight:
Phelps: 25.15 – 27.69 (52.84)
Lochte: 25.21 – 27.73 (52.94)
Jason Dunford: 24.68 – 28.65 (53.33)
Luis Martinez: 24.98 – 28.58 (53.56)
Eugene Godsoe: 25.39 – 28.36 (53.75)
Albert Subirats: 25.14 – 28.77 (53.91)
Matthew Josa: 24.97 – 28.94 (53.91)
Justin Lynch: 25.27 – 28.66 (53.93)
Only Godsoe, the second U.S. representative in this event at Worlds last summer for Team USA, was within eight tenths of a second of Lochte or Phelps coming home. Stay tuned for a bigger breakdown of this event in a separate post.