{"id":13166,"date":"2012-08-04T14:04:14","date_gmt":"2012-08-04T12:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/champ-le-clos-slept-with-his-medal\/"},"modified":"2012-08-04T14:04:14","modified_gmt":"2012-08-04T12:04:14","slug":"champ-le-clos-slept-with-his-medal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/champ-le-clos-slept-with-his-medal\/","title":{"rendered":"Champ Le Clos slept with his medal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t
\n \t\t\t \t\t\t \"Copy<\/p>\n

INLSA<\/p>\n

Westville Boys High swimming captain Marno Langeveldt, left, and deputy swimming captain Tyler Walker admire past pupil Chad le Closs incredible Olympic achievement. The boys were among the millions of South Africans who erupted in celebration when |Le Clos beat US star swimmer Michael Phelps by a fingertip in the 200m butterfly on Tuesday evening<\/p>\n

\n

\t\t \t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t \t\t <\/p>\n

On the morning after the night before, Oscar Pistorius bumped into Chad le Clos, the Olympic 200m butterfly champion, in a lift in the Olympic Village. His neck was adorned with the biggest prize in sport. <\/p>\n

\u201cI saw him in the lift this morning\u2026 and he had his medal around his neck, so I got to hold it and look at it,\u201d said Pistorius. <\/p>\n

\u201cI said to him: \u2018Where are you going?\u2019 He said: \u2018I\u2019m going to the dining hall.\u2019 I said: \u2018Are you going to take the medal off? He said: \u2018I haven\u2019t taken it off since yesterday!\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cHe slept with it around his neck. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen when he competes in other events. He\u2019s probably going to have to swim with it strapped to his back or something!\u201d <\/p>\n

Yesterday morning, Le Clos had barely had time to come to terms with what he had achieved. He had just swum in the 200m individual medley and qualified for the semi-finals and was struggling. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was hurting, oh my gosh, that was hard,\u201d he said. \u201cI got to bed at, like, 2.30am, and I only got into the room at 2am. Leith (Shankland) and Gideon (Louw) were up waiting for me and gave me a small cheering-on party. It wasn\u2019t very long because I had to wake up this morning and face reality, and come and race again.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Copy<\/p>\n

Westville Boys High School unite in a spectacular cheer at a special assembly held in honour of past pupil Chad le Closs Olympic gold medal.<\/p>\n

INLSA<\/span><\/p>\n

He said that the realisation he was an Olympic gold medallist \u2013 and had beaten the most successful Olympian in Michael Phelps in the 200m butterfly \u2013 was still setting in. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still like a dream for me, because I never thought it would happen so soon, and it\u2019s happened so quickly. It\u2019s almost like you\u2019ve won the lottery.\u201d <\/p>\n

Le Clos\u2019s father, Bert, became an internet celebrity on Tuesday night after he gave an interview with the BBC. Le Clos sr bubbled over, even slipping in a little F-bomb during the live broadcast. \u201cUnbelievable, unbelievable. It\u2019s like I\u2019ve died and gone to heaven,\u201d said Bert le Clos. <\/p>\n

\u201cI can only imagine how my dad reacted \u2013 he\u2019s always gone crazy,\u201d said Le Clos. \u201cHe\u2019s always been such a, well, crybaby. It was awesome to have him in my corner.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INLSA Westville Boys High swimming captain Marno Langeveldt, left, and deputy swimming captain Tyler Walker admire past pupil Chad le Closs incredible Olympic achievement. The boys were among the millions of South Africans who erupted in celebration when |Le Clos beat US star swimmer Michael Phelps by a fingertip in the 200m butterfly on Tuesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-13166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}