About 35 minutes after his historic fourth consecutive gold medal in the 200m individual medley earlier on Thursday, Michael Phelps advanced into the 100m butterfly final on Friday. He has the chance to do the same in the 100m butterfly as he did in the 200m IM: earn a fourth consecutive gold in the event.
Phelps advances in fifth place overall, with his time of 51.58 seconds, and his teammate Tom Shields also qualified to the final 0.03 seconds behind Phelps.
Leading the pack are medal contenders Joseph Schooling of Singapore (50.83), Chad le Clos (51.43) of South Africa and Laszlo Cseh in Hungary. China’s Li Zhunhao finished in fourth with 51.51.