Beijing - Michael Phelps left Ryan Lochte in his wake.
Bring on the French!
With no room for error in his quest to break Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals, Phelps and three American teammates headed into perhaps the toughest obstacle of all on Monday morning: a showdown in the 400-meter freestyle relay against France, a team led by world record holder Alain Bernard.
Michael Phelps of the US starts his men's 200m freestyle swimming heat at the National Aquatics Center during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, August 10, 2008. [Agencies] |
"That's going to be a fun one," Phelps said.
The French believe they can ruin Phelps' hopes of going eight-for-eight in China where eight is considered a lucky number. They've certainly got reason to be confident, putting up the best time of the year until a backup American squad broke the world record in the preliminaries on Sunday night.
The French also went under the old mark -- just 13-hundredths off the US time of 3:12.23 -- and that was with Bernard and their other top 100 man, Fabien Gilot, resting up in preparation to join Amaury Leveaux and Frederick Bousquet in the final.
"We want to be the best," Bernard said. "It will be one of the toughest races for Michael to win. The world record will be in danger."
Then again, Lochte was supposed to make a run for the gold in Sunday's 400 individual medley. But, with US President Bush cheering him on, Phelps dominated his first event of the Beijing Olympics with a jaw-dropping time of 4 minutes, 3.84 seconds -- crushing his own world record and any hope of his challengers.
US President George W. Bush meets 2008 Gold Medal winner Michael Phelps (R) at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games National Aquatics Center in Beijing August 10, 2008. [Agencies] |
"We just don't know how good that is," said Eddie Reese, head coach of the US men's team. "If somebody 10 or 15 years ago would have said the 400 IM will be won in 2008 in 4:03.8, I'd have bet everything I had or would ever get that it wouldn't happen."
But the impossible has become the norm where Phelps is concerned. While others break world records by fractions of a second, he takes them down in huge chunks. The 400 IM, where all four strokes are required, was just the latest race to leave folks shaking their heads and wondering how he does it.
"That was one of the most amazing swims I've ever seen in my life," said another American star, Aaron Peirsol. "He absolutely blew me away. He's going to be on fire now. It's going to be hard to stop him."
Phelps sat out the relay prelims, conserving his energy even though he did have to go through the bother of qualifying for the semifinals of the 200 freestyle. The Americans also rested Garrett Weber-Gale and Jason Lezak, going with a team comprised of Nathan Adrian, Cullen Jones, Ben Wildman-Tobriner and Matt Grevers.
Those four broke the 2-year-old world record, but only Jones will be moving on to swim in the finals. For the others, their work is done.
"The four of us set out to do something that not a lot of people thought we could do," Jones said. "We weren't afraid to feel the pain."
Unlike the 400 IM, Phelps will have to rely on his teammates to capture his second gold in Beijing. He could swim the best 100 of his life and it still might not be enough to win gold.
But, if Phelps gets past the first of three relays, he might be unstoppable. He holds or helped set the world record in five of his remaining events, and he appears to have teammate Ian Crocker's number in the other race on his busy schedule, the 100 butterfly.
Phelps got his Olympics started with yet another memorable swim after barely holding off Lochte in the 400 IM at the US trials, where they both eclipsed the previous world record.
Laszlo Cseh of Hungary actually took the silver in 4:06.16, while Lochte faded to third in 4:08.09 -- more than 4 seconds behind the winner.
"Going into the last 50 and looking to my right and seeing that I was ahead of Ryan and Laszlo, I sort of started smiling," Phelps said.
After touching, he whipped around so quickly to spot his time that he bumped his head into the wall. Phelps pumped both arms in the air, and quickly spotted his mother and two sisters in the massive stands at the Water Cube.
He then looked the other way, where Bush was waving his American flag, accompanied by the first lady, their daughter Barbara and his father, former US President George H.W. Bush.
Phelps smiled, pointed and gave a thumbs-up.
"God, what a thrill to cheer for you!" the US president told Phelps when they met afterward.
On the medal stand, Phelps' eyes watered as the US flag was raised to the rafters.
"I just think he was caught up in the moment," said Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman, who was surprised as anyone by the rare show of emotion and started tearing up himself. "That's a pretty amazing day."
But when "The Star-Spangled Banner" cut off a few seconds from the end, Phelps cracked up.
No one was smiling more than Dara Torres, a 41-year-old mom who became the oldest medalist in Olympic swimming history when she anchored the Americans to a silver medal in the 400 free relay, behind the winning Dutch.
"There are a lot of middle-aged men and women who I know that tell me that I'm an inspiration to them and they're now doing things they thought they couldn't do," she said. "I'm hoping that my age paves the way for other athletes who maybe think they're too old to do something."
Stephanie Rice also dazzled on what figures to be an all-out assault on the record book over the nine-day meet.
The glamorous Australian won the women's 400 IM in 4:29.45 -- nearly 2 seconds faster than the world record of 4:31.12 set by Katie Hoff at the US Olympic trials.
Hoff, who plans to match Phelps by swimming five individual events in Beijing, settled for a bronze as her first Olympic medal, but at least she didn't throw up on deck as she did at a nerve-racking Athens debut four years ago.
"It does take a little of the pressure off," Hoff said. "But getting bronze does still leave me a little bit hungry for things that are a little higher. It will just drive me all week."