Chad le Clos needs one more Commonwealth Games medal to stand alone as the most decorated male athlete in the event’s history, and he gets his shot at it in Glasgow, the exact city where he last rewrote the record books.
Twelve years ago, a 22 year old Chad le Clos climbed out of the water at Tollcross International Swimming Centre having equalled Ian Thorpe’s record of seven medals in a single Games. He had done it battling asthma so badly he was on three different pumps in the lead-up. He is back in that same pool this week, at 34, sitting on 18 medals from four Games, needing just one podium finish to move clear at the top.
The story starts a long way from Glasgow, though. It starts at Seagulls Swimming Club in Durban, where an eight year old Chad le Clos was handed to coach Graham Hill after a primary school teacher spotted something in him worth chasing. Hill has coached him ever since. That relationship, stretching back more than two decades, is the actual foundation underneath everything that has followed.
By 18 he already held senior South African records and Commonwealth junior and senior marks. Delhi 2010 was his first senior Games, and the teenager announced himself properly, winning the 200m butterfly and 400m individual medley, adding a relay silver and two bronzes. Five medals from a debut. Nobody in South African swimming had seen a start like it.
Two years later he became a household name for reasons that had nothing to do with Commonwealth colours. London 2012, the Olympic 200m butterfly final, and a 21 year old Chad le Clos touched out Michael Phelps by 0.05 seconds. His father Bert’s BBC interview afterwards went as viral as the swim itself. But it was Glasgow, two years after that, where the Commonwealth record chase actually began in earnest.
Glasgow 2014 remains the defining week of his career at this level. Two golds, in the 100m and 200m butterfly. A bronze in the 50m fly. A bronze in the 200m individual medley, won by one hundredth of a second. Three relay medals stacked on top. Seven in total, matching Thorpe’s mark set at Manchester 2002, and taking his career haul to 12 medals from just two Games. He did all of it, by his own account, while barely able to breathe properly in the lead-up.
“Eighteen medals across four Games tells you everything about consistency, but going back to Glasgow for the nineteenth tells you about the man. This is a story about a kid from Durban who never stopped chasing the same pool!” – 🎙️Jay
Gold Coast 2018 pushed the total further. Three butterfly golds, 50m, 100m and 200m, made him the first man to sweep all three at a single Games. Birmingham 2022 was harder going, injuries and form catching up with him, a lone silver in the 200m fly the only reward from a Games he had once hoped would deliver the outright record. It left him level at 18 medals with two retired shooters, England’s Mick Gault and Australia’s Phillip Adams, both of whom needed six Games to get there. Chad le Clos has done it in four.
There is a twist to this campaign. For the first time in over a decade, Chad le Clos is not entered in the 200m butterfly, the event that made him an Olympic champion and a two-time Commonwealth Games record holder in it. He arrives in Glasgow racing only the sprints, the 50m and 100m butterfly, a deliberate narrowing of focus from a swimmer managing an ageing body rather than chasing every race on offer.
The 100m butterfly final goes off at Tollcross on Sunday, 26 July. The 50m butterfly final follows on Wednesday, 29 July. Either one, a single podium finish in either race, makes him outright the most decorated male athlete in Commonwealth Games history. Two more beyond that would draw him level with Emma McKeon’s overall record of 20, the highest total by any athlete, male or female, in the Games.
📸 Images via Getty Images / Streeter Lecka
