GLASGOW, July 30 (Reuters) - Veteran South African swimmer Chad le Clos won a 21st Commonwealth Games medal late on Wednesday to overtake Australia’s Emma McKeon as the most decorated athlete in the Games’ history.
The 34-year-old swam the butterfly leg as South Africa took bronze in the men’s 4x100 medley relay for his third of the 2026 Games after silver in the mixed 4x100 medley and bronze in the men’s 4x100 freestyle relay.
His record tally is made up of seven golds, five silvers and nine bronzes across the last five Games, starting in Delhi in 2010 at the age of 18 where he earned five medals, and then followed by seven medals in Glasgow in 2014.
He continued with five more on the Gold Coast in 2018 and one in Birmingham four years ago.
“It was emotional, but I think those first two medals (in Glasgow 2026) were just a little bit more just because I had to get over the hump and tonight I just had to stay cool and bring it home,” he said after Wednesday’s relay.
“The way the boys and girls swam ...they swam their hearts out. They kept saying ‘we’re doing this for Chad’ before they walked down and it just means the world to me.”
Le Clos is also an Olympic champion. He stunned the sporting world when he pipped Michael Phelps by 0.05 seconds to win the 200m butterfly gold at the 2012 London Games.
At the time, American icon Phelps was a 14-time Olympic champion and he had not lost in the event since 2001.
Le Clos won medals at the Olympics in Rio in 2016 and has since competed in Tokyo and Paris. He has previously said he hopes to qualify for his fifth Olympics in Los Angeles in two years’ time.
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
