The Phelps Watch
By Chad Klassen
Love of Sports Correspondent
Michael Phelps has now matched his gold medal total from the 2004 Athens Olympics, earning his sixth victory at the Water Cube in Beijing in convincing fashion.
Yet again, Phelps smashed his own world record in the 200-meter IM.
In Athens, it took the Baltimore Bullet until his eighth and final race of the Games to celebrate a sixth gold. In Beijing, however, he’s been perfect thus far and still has two more races to tie or break Mark Spitz’s seven finishes atop the podium.
In an event that features 50 meters each of the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle, Phelps got off to a terrific start, boasting a half-length lead when he finally emerged from the water in the first leg of the medley.
The butterfly’s one of his strong suits, and it was crucial he build himself up a wide margin before diving into the breast and backstroke, which are considered his two weakest disciplines.
The rest of the field was able to pick up a little time on him, but they didn’t pick up enough ground, as the phenom put things into cruise control on the final leg of freestyle, touching the wall in 1:54.23.
He finished the race an unbelievable two and a half seconds ahead of silver medalist Laszlo Cseh of Hungary, while also beating his previous record by 0.57 seconds for the easy win.
Fellow American swimmer Ryan Lochte, who was thought to be a serious threat, gave Phelps a minor challenge for parts of the race, but dropped off into the final turn and had to settle for bronze behind the man of destiny.
Not to say he would’ve actually knocked Phelps off, but Lochte must’ve been a little spent swimming the race of his life a half-hour earlier when he won gold in the 200-meter backstroke.
But like most other races during the 2008 Olympics, swimmers who tend to stay close during the first half quickly dropped off into the last turn.
Phelps was ahead the whole race, but stepped it up in the freestyle portion and the competitors faded into the stretch run, resulting in another gold medal in world record time, his sixth such record-breaking performance of these Games.
As it stands now, everything’s going Phelps’ way to this point, and he’s destined for greatness in the next two days.
He got through his two toughest tests coming into the Olympics, the 400-meter IM and 4x100 freestyle relay, and now only the 100-meter butterfly and 4x100 medley relay stand between him and a historic eight gold medals. Stay tuned!
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