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Michael Phelps and his new meme are taking over the Olympics

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Michael Phelps celebrates after winning his 21st career gold medal Tuesday night. (REUTERS/David Gray)

The 2012 London Olympics did not go as Michael Phelps planned. He admittedly did not train as well as he did leading into previous Games, and though the Baltimore native left with four more gold medals in men’s swimming, the two races he didn’t win lingered after the fact.

Searching for better closure to his Olympic career, Phelps ended his initial plan to retire from competition and returned to the pool for one last go-around in Rio. So far, this swan song is going far better.

Michael Phelps extends his legacy with two more gold medals at Rio Olympics

For starters, he’s 3 for 3 in terms of winning gold medals after adding two more to his haul Tuesday night in the 200-meter butterfly and 4×200-meter freestyle relay. The most decorated Olympian in history now has 21 gold medals for his career.

But Rio has also turned Phelps into an Internet sensation again thanks to the meme of his death scowl/stare toward South African rival Chad Le Clos while Le Clos prepared for the start of the 200-meter butterfly semifinals by shadow boxing Monday night. The face of Phelps, almost growling, is showing up all over the place days after the now infamous pre-race incident.

Even McKayla Maroney, the queen of the meme from the 2012 Olympic Games, told TMZ that Phelps’s display of contempt for Le Clos may have surpassed her own show of indignation in London.

As if that weren’t enough, Phelps used his own variation of Lilly King’s Mutumbo finger wag Tuesday night after beating Le Clos and others to win the 200-meter butterfly final.

And of course, no new meme can exist without somehow being interspersed with Crying Jordan.

Michael Phelps’s mad face, Lilly King’s cold war: Olympic swimming feuds chill Rio pools