Chad’s sting earns him a Phelps death stare
CHAD le Clos stung in the butterfly after he had floated in the free, and Michael Phelps did not like it one little bit. In the call-room before their 200m butterfly semi-final in Rio on Monday night, Le Clos shadow-boxed directly in front of Phelps.
The face of the American turned from a frown into a grimace, then a snarl of fury as Le Clos danced like Muhmmad Ali, jabbing and jiving, and, no doubt, intentionally jagging Phelps’s temper.
It was the first time the two had come up against each other since Le Clos had beaten him in the 200m butterfly at the London Games in 2012. Phelps had been his hero and in London he was still in awe of the man who won his 19th gold medal in the 4x100m freestyle relay on Monday.
In the past four years their relationship has grown somewhat icy, with Phelps accusing Le Clos of trash talking and Le Clos refusing to back down.
Yesterday, Le Clos, who had just taken silver in the 200m freestyle, in which he had floated in the lead for the first 150m, was looking to sting Phelps in the butterfly semifinal.
He was perhaps looking for an edge with just 39 minutes of “rest” between his two races in the evening session in Rio.
“I don’t know, I just do what I need to do,” said Le Clos, when asked about the shadow-boxing.
“The call room is what it is. It is a difficult place with a lot of tension.”
The final was due to take place at 3.28am today.
The two swimmers trended on social media after their call room clash, with many noting the “Phelps death stare”.
The Le Clos family were expected to gather in Durban, as they did in 2012, at the Stella Sports Club in Glenwood from 3am today to cheer on the home-town favourite. Bert and Geraldine le Clos are in Rio to support their son. Georgia le Clos told The Mercury yesterday that they would be there in force for the final. In 2012 there were tears aplenty as Le Clos stormed to the narrowest of victories. Family friend Melanie Danhauser said that more than 40 people, including Le Clos’s family, friends and people from his swimming club, were expected to be present at the sports club. “Chad always says he is swimming for his family, so it was decided we should watch it together.” Le Clos is not intimidated by the reputation of Phelps. “May the best man win,” he said this week. “I’ll race my heart out.”
WHY do some of the world’s top athletes look as though they’ve been on the receiving end of a brutal paintball firing squad?
US swimmer Michael Phelps’s skin is strewn with livid polka dots, and his compatriot, the gymnast Alex Naddour, is also sporting circular welts.
But this is not the result of a corporate team-building exercise. The athletes are among the latest adherents to the traditional Chinese medicine treatment known as “cupping”.
This involves having hot suction cups applied to the skin for several minutes, leaving what appears to be a circular love bite on the surface, which can take more than two weeks to fade.
The technique has been used for millennia, but shot to prominence in 2004, when US actor Gwyneth Paltrow attended a film premier with circular marks peppering her skin.
Other celebrity endorsements followed, with Victoria Beckham and Jennifer Aniston among those sporting the circular suction marks.
But the Rio Olympics provides us with growing evidence that athletes are turning to the alternative medicine in an attempt to boost their performance.
According to Naddour, he has found the treatment “provides relief from the soreness and pounding that come from gymnastics”.
He told USA Today: “That’s been the secret that I have had through this year that keeps me healthy. It’s been better than any money I’ve spent on anything else. It has saved me from a lot of pain.”
Cupping is claimed by its practitioners to treat an array of ailments, including muscular pain, joint pain, skin problems such as eczema and acne, and respiratory disorders such as the common cold, pneumonia and bronchitis. It has has also been used as an alternative treatment for cancer.
Dr Ayaaz Farhat, co-director of the London Cupping Clinic, said: “The use of cupping therapy among athletes has grown over the last decade, Wang Qun, the then teenage Chinese swimmer being the most obvious in Beijing Olympics. Since then, Floyd Mayweather, Andy Murray, Amir Khan and more recently the Olympians in Rio have all been seen with cupping marks.
“Their increased use is for the same reason that freeze tanks or oxygen-rich blood injections are used by international sports teams and premiership footballers – to recover from the inevitable strains and knocks for the next round of competition.
He added: “It’s not straightforward to prove how effective it is as there is such a vast range of injuries that we see, in terms of anatomy but also the underlying cause for that problem. But it is a very effective way to enhance, encourage and even accelerate the body’s own immune response to injury.
“The main benefits are encouraging the inflammatory response of the body and speeding up muscular and soft tissue recovery.”
However, there is currently scant evidence the technique has any detectable benefit in treating any physical malady.
In their 2008 book Trick or Treatment, science author Simon Singh and a former professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, Edzard Ernst, wrote that the technique “has a long history, but there is no evidence that it generates positive effects in any medical condition”.
David Colquhoun, professor of pharmacology at University College London, said: “There’s no science behind it whatsoever. There’s some vague conceptual connection with accupunture, and it is often sold by the same people. But how could it possibly do anything? It’s nonsense.
“It’s not for scientists to show how it can’t work, it’s practitioners’ business to prove that it does work, which they haven’t done.
“But it’s desperately implausible: how the hell should sucking up a bit of skin in a cup do anything to your athletic performance?” – The Independent