Projo Sports Blog

By Larry Siddons
Bloomberg

Tiger Woods won a major golf tournament on a broken leg. Now comes Michael Phelps, setting the record for Olympic gold medals in a swimming race where he couldn't see.

Phelps won his fourth gold of the Beijing Games and historic 10th of his career today in the 200-meter butterfly, lowering his world record to 1 minute, 52.03 seconds.

"Pretty cool," was how he described being the most successful Olympian of all time.

And as his stack of gold grows, so does his legend: Phelps had to swim blind for the final stretch after water got into his goggles.

"I dove in and they filled up with water, and it got worse and worse during the race," Phelps told reporters. "From the 150-meter wall to the finish, I couldn't see the wall. I was just hoping I was winning."

When he finished two-thirds of a second ahead of Hungary's Laszlo Cseh, the 23-year-old American tore off his swim cap and the leaky goggles and slammed them to the pool deck.

"I wanted to go 1:51 or better," he said. "But for the circumstances I guess it's not too bad."

The 10th gold medal broke the record he tied yesterday with a win in the 200-meter freestyle and moved him to the top of the heap above Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis, Paavo Nurmi and Larissa Latynina.

"To be the most decorated Olympian of all time, it just sounds weird saying it," Phelps said at a news conference. "I just keep thinking, `Wow. The greatest Olympian of all time.' That's a pretty cool title. I'm definitely honored."

Spitz's Mark

Goggles fixed, he later added an 11th championship, swimming the opening leg of the 800-meter freestyle relay won by the U.S. in a world-record time of 6:58.56. World marks have accompanied all five of Phelps's titles in the Water Cube pool.

Phelps has three more events in Beijing and needs to win them all to break another mark -- the seven-gold-medal performance by Spitz in the pool at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. He won't talk about his exact goal for Beijing, although Spitz said he thinks he knows what it is.

"I never get a question about my nine gold medals," Spitz said in an interview last month, referring to his career total. "I don't think that's what he's aiming at. I think he's aiming at eight in these Games."

Woods won the U.S. Open in June, then announced that he had been playing with a ruptured knee ligament and stress fractures of his lower leg. He's home in Florida recuperating from surgery that will keep him off the golf course until 2009.

Basketball Fans

Some other sports stars showed up at the pool today to cheer on Phelps. LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd of the U.S. Olympic basketball team were in the stands, posing for pictures with Phelps's mother, Debbie, before the racing started.
They couldn't know the drama about to unfold, courtesy of the water-filled goggles and a New Zealander named Moss Burmester.

He led the American by .03 second after 50 meters of the butterfly, a race in which Phelps was the defending champion and has held the world record since March 2001. Phelps, straining to see, moved into the lead in the second 50 and pulled away, taking .06 second off his old mark.

No one got ahead of Phelps in the relay as the U.S. team left its rivals to fight for the silver medal.

Phelps built a 2 1/2-second lead over Australia, with Ryan Lochte and Ricky Berens doubling the margin. Peter Vanderkaay, the bronze medalist in the 200 freestyle, finished the win 5.14 seconds ahead of Russia and 5.58 under the old world mark.
"We've been trying to get under seven minutes for a while now, and we knew it was possible," Vanderkaay said. "It feels good to do it here."

No Risk

With a five-second lead, Vanderkaay took his time jumping in to start the anchor leg, not wanting to risk a disqualification that would cost the U.S. a medal and Phelps a shot at more history.

"I definitely played it safe," he said.

Phelps was back in Water Cube hours later to win his evening heat in the 200-meter individual medley, where he again is the defending champion and world record-holder. That final is in two days.

Tomorrow is his lone day without a medal race, though there are medley semifinals and heats in the 100-meter butterfly, his only individual event in which he doesn't have the world's best time. Teammate Ian Crocker does, and they should meet in the final on Aug. 16. The meet concludes with Phelps in the 400- meter medley relay the next day.

Just before his first race today, Phelps said he received a text message from a friend in the U.S.: "It's time to be the best ever."

"It's kind of cool to know a country is backing you and is on your side," the new champion of champions said.

 Tags  goggles men's swimming Michael Phelps Olympics

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