{"id":21460,"date":"2013-07-27T00:20:22","date_gmt":"2013-07-26T22:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/swimming-world-hopes-for-life-after-phelps\/"},"modified":"2013-07-27T00:20:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-26T22:20:22","slug":"swimming-world-hopes-for-life-after-phelps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/swimming-world-hopes-for-life-after-phelps\/","title":{"rendered":"Swimming world hopes for life after Phelps"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/phelps-and-le-clos-swim-with-sharks\/\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Phelps<\/a>\u00a0has dominated the world swimming scene for more years than most people can remember.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/?attachment_id=10981\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-10981\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10981\" alt=\"Is there life after Phelps? Swimming world hopes so. Photo: Sowetan Live\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/f0dfb_MichaelPhelps130311AwardG300.jpg\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Is there life after Phelps? Swimming world hopes so. Photo: Sowetan Live<\/p>\n<p>Since first winning 200 metre butterfly gold at the world championships in Fukuoka in <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Japan\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=35.6833333333,139.766666667spn=10.0,10.0q=35.6833333333,139.766666667 (Japan)t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">Japan<\/a> in 2001, Phelps added 25 gold medals, six silver and one bronze \u2013 and that from the worlds alone.<\/p>\n<p>In between world championships, he became the most successful Olympian by a long shot as he won 18 golds, two silver and two bronze between 2004 and 2012.<\/p>\n<p>However, the American superstar retired at age 27 at the end of the London Olympics and the <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/le-clos-aims-for-gold-in-barcelona\/\" target=\"_blank\">14th FINA world championships<\/a>, which are being held from July 19 to August 4 in <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Barcelona\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=41.3833333333,2.18333333333spn=0.1,0.1q=41.3833333333,2.18333333333 (Barcelona)t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">Barcelona<\/a>, is the first major meet since 2000 in which Phelps will not participate.<\/p>\n<p>Even without Phelps, the United States are sending a very strong team to Barcelona and are the favourites to top the medal standings in the swimming competition which starts on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>South Africans, meanwhile, are hoping for another <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/le-clos-aims-for-gold-in-barcelona\/\" target=\"_blank\">stand-out performance<\/a> from Chad le Clos, who beat Phelps in the 200m butterfly in London. The 21-year-old will swim in the three butterfly events in Barcelona and said beating Phelps had meant so much to him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am now going into a world championships as the man having a target on his back and that is different for me but I just have to prepare for the race as I usually do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy whole career was about, with respect, trying to beat Michael Phelps. I always wanted to race the best in world,\u201d he said in a press conference in Barcelona. \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sowetanlive.co.za\/\" target=\"_blank\">SAPA-DPA<\/a><\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/phelps-and-le-clos-swim-with-sharks\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/f0dfb_188075491_80_80.jpg\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/phelps-and-le-clos-swim-with-sharks\/\" target=\"_blank\">Phelps and le Clos swim with sharks<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/zwemza.wordpress.com\/2013\/07\/25\/swimming-looks-to-life-after-phelps\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/f0dfb_188171895_80_80.jpg\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/zwemza.wordpress.com\/2013\/07\/25\/swimming-looks-to-life-after-phelps\/\" target=\"_blank\">Swimming looks to life after Phelps<\/a><\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/bonusrepublic.com\/swimming-world-championships-with-phelps-retired-le-clos-seeks-new-inspiration\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/f0dfb_187953735_80_801.jpg\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/bonusrepublic.com\/swimming-world-championships-with-phelps-retired-le-clos-seeks-new-inspiration\/\" target=\"_blank\">Swimming World Championships With Phelps retired, Le Clos seeks new inspiration<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/f0dfb_zemified_h.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Phelps\u00a0has dominated the world swimming scene for more years than most people can remember. Is there life after Phelps? Swimming world hopes so. Photo: Sowetan Live Since first winning 200 metre butterfly gold at the world championships in Fukuoka in Japan in 2001, Phelps added 25 gold medals, six silver and one bronze \u2013 [&hellip;]<\/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":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-21460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","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\/21460","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=21460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}