Michael Phelps after setting a world record in the 400-meter individual medley.
But the sight that best summarized the last eight days and nights was the stretch of open water that separated Michael Phelps from his closest pursuers as he stroked his way to the finish of the 400 individual medley and his seventh gold medal in Melbourne.
In a longstanding sport where the numbers after the decimal point usually make the difference between first and second, Phelps overwhelmed the paradigm at age 21: routinely pulverizing world records by a second or two and routinely pulverizing the opposition by more, even when allegedly weary.
“Honestly, a lot of it tonight was really about adrenaline,” Phelps said.
The only part of his body that does not look aqua dynamic are his protruding ears, but the rest of it undulates through the water at a historic clip, and he made plenty of swimming history here: passing Thorpe’s record of six gold medals in a world championships and joining Mark Spitz as the only man to win seven times in a major meet.
Spitz piled up his gold in a bigger, fancier fish bowl: the 1972 Olympics. But Spitz did not break five world records along the way like Phelps, and Spitz swam only freestyle and butterfly. Phelps swam all four strokes, establishing personal bests or world records in event in which he competed.
“His performance this week was the greatest performance of all time,” the American head coach Mark Schubert said.
“I guess I don’t real look at it by the medals. I look at it by the dominance and by the records, and the way he handled it from event to event. I just didn’t notice any weak points.”
Phelps won both freestyle relays and five individual events: the 100 butterfly, the 200 butterfly, the 200 freestyle, the 200 individual medley and, finally, the 400 individual medley, which he broke open on the third leg with his weakest stroke, the breast stroke, and finished in four minutes, 6.22 seconds.
That was 2.04 seconds ahead of his own world record at the 2004 Olympics and 3.52 seconds ahead of his American teammate Ryan Lochte, who won the silver medal.
“I didn’t expect to be two seconds under my world record tonight,” Phelps said. “I’m definitely happy with how this turned out. This is definitely the best-case scenario for what we had in mind.”
That was not quite true. When the final day began, he looked well on his way to passing Spitz and winning eight gold medals. But in the end, the only thing that could stop him was someone else’s mistake.
The gaffe, much more unexpected than any April Fool’s joke, came in the final heat of the men’s medley relay on Sunday morning. Phelps was resting as his American teammates — Ryan Lochte, Scott Usher, Ian Crocker and Neil Walker — attempted to do the straightforward: qualify the American team for the final of the medley relay.
It should have been a lock, but instead it turned into a shock, as Crocker left the starting block one hundredth of a second too early when Usher reached the wall at the end of the second leg.
The American team was disqualified after the race, even though its time would have been the fastest over all by more than two seconds. Schubert and Bob Bowman examined frame-by-frame video footage of Crocker’s start and declined to protest.
“Team U.S.A. goes into a meet as one and that’s how we exit; everything can’t be perfect,” Phelps said. “It definitely wasn’t intentional. They all wanted to swim and get us in the finals.”
Crocker, who had lost to Phelps in a tight 100 butterfly final on Saturday night, declined comment but he did rise and speak at a team meeting later that evening during which he received plenty of support.
The rules allow a relay swimmer the leeway to start three hundredths of a second early. Crocker left four hundredths of a second early. “That’s just incomprehensible, that amount of time,” Walker said. “The way his windup was, his preparation was conservative. It was just the touch and takeoff, it was a little bit too much.”
It was the latest strange twist during the final weekend here. On Saturday, Phelps matched Ian Thorpe’s record of six gold medals on the same day that Thorpe’s legacy was called into question when it was reported by the French sports paper L’Equipe that a drug test he took last May was being challenged by swimming’s world governing body, FINA.
FINA later confirmed that it had filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. FINA is seeking clarification of the results of a drug test performed on an Australian swimmer by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority.
Neither FINA officials nor the anti-doping officials would confirm whether the swimmer in question was Thorpe. But Thorpe, who retired in November at age 24, confirmed it Sunday in an emotional news conference in Melbourne in which he denied doping, vowed to clear his name and expressed outrage at the fact that his name was leaked despite the fact that his test has not yet been ruled positive.
“That’s the hardest thing to take,” he said. “So you know my reputation probably is tarnished now. What’s important is to actually get the facts out there and for the right result to come out, which will be a negative test.”
Thorpe, the finest middle-distance freestyler in history, won five Olympic gold medals and has become one of Australia’s most revered sportsman. “It’s probably at the other end of the spectrum to winning an Olmpic gold medal,” he said.
Thorpe said he had been informed by ASADA on Saturday that his test in May 2006 had shown unusually high levels of testosterone and luteinizing hormone, a substance produced by the pituitary gland that aids in testosterone production.
“Both of these substances are naturally occurring substances,” Thorpe said. “There are many innocent physiological and pathological reasons why a test may return unusual levels of these substances.”
Richard Ings, the chairman of the Australian anti-doping authority said that despite FINA’s appeal, ASADA’s inquiry had never been closed.
“I was in complete shock,” Thorpe said of his reaction when informed of the questionable test on Saturday. “I think I sat in my room, you know, physically shaking.”
Australian prime minister John Howard was among those who quickly vouched for Thorpe’s character, but there were also other concerns.
“I think it would be a real pity if this was to overshadow what Michael Phelps is doing here,” said Glenn Tasker, the chief executive of Swimming Australia. “It would be a travesty of justice because we are seeing something that no one’s ever done before.”
Even without Phelps, this would have been a remarkable meet for the Americans, who tied their all-time best performance at a world championships with 20 gold medals and 36 overall medals: the same totals as in 1978.
Australia, led by Libby Lenton, was second in the standings with nine gold medals and 21 overall medals. Lenton, the big women’s winner here, took five gold medals, including the 50 freestyle on Sunday.
Other winners on the final night included the Australian men in the medley relay, Gerhard Zandberg of South Africa in the men’s 50 back, Jessica Hardy of the United States in the women’s 50 breast stroke, Hoff in the women’s 400 individual medley and Sawrymowicz in a men’s 1500 in which struggling four-time champion Grant Hackett finished seventh.
Hoff, 17, won by the Phelpsian margin of 7.25 seconds to win in 4:32.89 and break the record of 4:33.59 set by Yana Klockhkova of Ukraine at the 2000 Olympics.
It was the 14th world record to fall here, but 14 will not be the number that will define Melbourne’s championships. The defining number will be seven, and it really should have been eight.
Thank you Google News and Christopher Clarey for the news.
