OMAHA, Neb. — Matching each other stroke for stroke, Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte surged to the wall in almost perfect sync.

Phelps got there first, just ahead of the guy who’s pushed him hard for more than a decade.

It was like so many races they’ve had before.

There’s one more to go in Rio.

In the latest epic of their longtime rivalry – and billed as the last showdown in their home country – Phelps edged Lochte in the 200-meter individual medley at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials Friday night.

“Ryan and I always have a great race with one another,” said Phelps, who plans to retire again after his fifth Olympics. “When we race each other, we bring each other to a different level.”

Phelps led from start to finish, but Lochte was right with him all the way. In fact, he seemed to pull even midway through the final lap, but the most decorated athlete in Olympic history managed to get to the wall in 1 minute, 55.91 seconds.

Lochte was next at 1:56.22 and had no complaints about the consolation prize: his only individual race at the Olympics.

“I knew going into this race it was definitely going to be a dogfight to the end,” Lochte said.

Lochte, an 11-time medalist, injured his groin on the very first day of the meet, struggled in his next few races and was down to his final chance to get a swim of his own at the Summer Games.

Now, that’s out of the way, which means Phelps and Lochte will get another crack at each other in South America.

Tyler Clary finished third in the 200 backstroke and called it a career, having missed out on a chance to defend the gold he won in London.

There was another sweep in the women’s breaststroke, where 19-year-old Lilly King added a 200 victory to her earlier triumph in the 100.

Katie Ledecky’s bid to add another relay to her Rio program took a big blow when she finished seventh in the 100 freestyle.

USAIN BOLT’S Olympic quest is in doubt, after the sprint superstar left Jamaica’s national championships with a hamstring injury shortly before he was going to run the 100-meter final.

He’s not out of the Rio Games, but his status hinges now on how he does at a meet in London in three weeks. Bolt said he was diagnosed with a Grade 1 hamstring tear – the most mild sort – and that the discomfort began presenting itself in his quarterfinal race on Thursday night.

THE IAAF approved Russian whistleblower Yulia Stepanova’s bid to compete as a neutral athlete in the European championships and Rio Olympics.

Stepanova was the first athlete accepted by track and field’s governing body on Friday to compete under “exceptional eligibility,” granting her an exemption from the doping suspension of the entire Russian team.

Stepanova was one of the world’s top 800-meter runners before she and her husband Vitaly Stepanov, a drug-testing official, provided evidence to the World Anti-Doping Agency that doping was systematic in Russian athletics, with officials helping to cover it up.