Rio 2016: Phelps eats spaghetti after 200m butterfly

Michael Phelps says a nap and an inordinate amount of spaghetti will fuel his bid for a 20th Olympic gold medal.

The most decorated Olympian of all time reached the men's 200m butterfly semi-finals on Tuesday, finishing third in his heat behind Tamas Kenderesi and Grant Irvine.

The semi-finals follow later in the day and the 31-year-old, fresh from sealing gold in the 4x100m freestyle final on Sunday, revealed his low-tech recovery method.

He said: "I tried to do as much as I could, get my lactate cleared, had a massage, had an ice bath, eat.

"I think I had a pound of spaghetti and I am not a spaghetti fan, I forced myself to eat it.

"I guess I probably got to sleep at 03:00 and I was on an 11:00 bus. Quick turnarounds but the good thing is we have a long time between prelims and finals, so hopefully I can get home, get a quick nap in and be ready for tonight."

Odd circular bruises on Phelps back and shoulder have also raised eyebrows. These are apparently down to therapeutic 'cupping'.

"I have done it for a while," he said. "But I haven't had bad ones like this for a while, they usually hurt the most. I have done it before meets, pretty much every meet I go to.

"I asked for a little cupping yesterday because I was sore and the trainer hit me pretty hard with one - left a couple of bruises."