Michael Phelps’s winning time in the 2012 Olympic men’s 100-metre butterfly was 51.21 seconds. He rallied from seventh place at the halfway turn to overtake the field and win the gold medal in London.
Phelps finished 0.23 seconds ahead of Chad le Clos, who tied Yevgeny Korotyshkin for silver in 51.44. The victory gave Phelps a second consecutive Olympic three-peat: he had also won the 100-metre butterfly at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.
The race had an additional layer of history because Phelps had narrowly beaten Serbia’s Milorad Čavić in the same event at Beijing. Čavić led early in London but faded to fourth, finishing in 51.81. Phelps’s comeback made the final one of the most memorable races of his Olympic career.
The 51.21 time is often confused with the 51.44 shared by the silver medalists. It also differs from Phelps’s 200-metre individual medley victory, which came in 1:54.27, a completely separate event and distance.