Your hands jam into the wall pad, after swimming your final event the 400 IM (individual medley). You just won gold in record timing. The summer Olympics only come around once every four years. Only the best of the best will compete for a spot on theirs country’s team. From every corner of the world and every walk of life they will join each other to fight for a medal in the London 2012 Olympic games. London will be the city to hold the Olympics for the third time in record history, the last games that were held in London was in 1948 over 64 years ago.
This year there will be lots of athletic debuts, one of them will be a fellow South African Chad Le Clos. He will be competing in his first ever Olympics at the age of twenty and hopes to make history and bring gold home to South Africa. Chad Guy Bertrand le Clos was born in Durban South Africa April 12th 1992. He is representing South Africa in the 2012 Olympics for swimming, he is twenty and Is the oldest child of Bert and Geraldine le Clos. He graduated from Westville Boys high school In 2010 at the age of eighteen, and Chad enjoys swimming, surfing, soccer and playing rugby.
One of his goals was to beat Michael Phelps in the 200M butterfly, and after the 2012 Olympics are finished Chad is going to start training for the 2016 Olympics which will be held in Rio, and become faster than ever. As the London 2012 Olympics are underway there has been lots of media attention around the Le Clos family, Chad stated in an interview after he won against Michael Phelps he discussed how honored it is to have beaten his idol. ‘’ I just kept thinking I wanted to be up there on that podium; I wanted to be in that race with him.
I wanted to give him a run for his money, I wanted to make my idol proud. ’’ When Bert Le clos was asked about his sons swimming career his answer was simple ‘’swimming has taken my boy around the world, he’s competed in Moscow, Sweden and Berlin And me and his mother know he’s enjoyed every moment of it. ’’ In a press conference Chad’s coach Graham Hill expressed his thought on Chads experience in the games ‘’ He was hoping the advice given to him by Michael Phelps would help him win an Olympic medal. He just didn’t expect it to be of the gold variety’’.
Chad started swimming from an early age, and really got into competitive swimming at the age of ten. He trained in his home town of Durban, South Africa with Coach Graham Hill. In the youth Olympic Games, which were held in Singapore he won one gold, three silver and a bronze. Also that year at the commonwealth games in Delhi, he won two bronze, one silver and two gold medals. At the World Championships in Dubai that same year, he won a gold medal for 200M Butterfly. In 2011 at the all-African games held in Maputo he won, five gold and a silver medal.
Chad was awarded the Daily News SPAR Sports Person of the Year, in 2010 in which the top school sportsmen are nominated for. His main superstitions are he has to move his goggles three times up and down, and stretch his cap twice before getting on the starting block’s before each race. Chad won the gold medal in the 200M butterfly at the 2012 Olympics in London in 1 minute and 52. 96 seconds, won against Michael Phelps by 0. 05 seconds. Three days later chad won the silver in the 100M butterfly, tied with Yevgeny Kortotyshkin in a time of 51. 44 seconds just 0. 23 seconds behind Michael Phelps.
