NEW YORK may be the city that never sleeps, but Beijing is the city that never lies down, especially if you’re trying to keep up with Michael Phelps. How many gold medals has he won by now? That depends on when and where you’re asking.
When he left the Water Cube at lunchtime yesterday, Phelps had just collected his third gold medal, and third world record, this one in the 200 metres freestyle. With six in the bag from Athens four years ago, he already joins that legendary group of Olympians to win nine career gold medals, matching fellow Americans Mark Spitz and Carl Lewis, Finnish distance runner Paavo Nurmi and Soviet gymnast Larysa Latynina.
We’d left the night before still trying to make sense of his second gold medal, and second world record, as part of the American 4x100 metre relay team. If that was as draining to swim as it was to watch, we concluded, Phelps might be in trouble.
Yet by the time you read this, Phelps will probably have added two more, leaving him just two short of Spitz’s record seven-gold haul at the one Olympics set in the Munich pool 36 years ago – and still on course to surpass that record, and win his eighth. As if to underline his intention, Phelps is already emulating Spitz by including a world record with every medal he wins.
The 23-year-old from Baltimore is on a mission now, and as impossible as it once sounded, at times he’s making it look easy. If Phelps is not the greatest human swimmer that has ever lived then the greatest human swimmer never walked on land.
It’s all set up then for the most incredible achievement in Olympic history, not that anyone doesn’t believe what they’re seeing. Cleary no one has the need or the nerve to upset this smiley happy party happening poolside, because right now, Olympic swimming feels like one fairytale story after another. No questions are being asked because apparently there is no reason to ask them.
Strange, because as world and Olympic swimming records fall like stock exchange figures in a recession, hardly anyone here is raising an eyebrow or biting their lip, and that takes a bit of getting used to, especially for those of us more familiar with the inside of an athletics stadium.
By close of business in the pool yesterday, nine world and 17 Olympic records had been set in Beijing, with five days of swimming still to come.
What if this was a 23-year-old Chinese swimmer chasing the eight gold medals? Chances are we’d have a different story altogether.
Phelps, of course, has always had the squeaky cleanliness of a dishwater detergent, the only mild blemish being his drink-driving charge a few months after his success in Athens.
He’s also one of the dozen American team members (along with sprinter Tyson Gay) that signed up to additional blood and urine testing in a canvassing effort for drug-free sport.
Phelps has already waved off the question with the ease of one butterfly stroke: “It does not concern me,” he said, “because I can only control what I do. What others do is for them to deal with. I know I’m clean. That’s all that matters to me.”
All that mattered yesterday was winning gold medal number three. The 200 metres freestyle has become one of the headline events in swimming, ever since Spitz made it part of his seven-gold medal haul in 1972, winning in a world record of 1:52.78.
This time, it was no race at all. When Phelps touched the wall in 1:42.96, knocking practically a full second off his own world record, and two full body lengths ahead of everyone else, we briefly expected he may come up gasping for air. Instead, he put his right index finger in the chlorine-scented air and matter-of-factly climbed from the pool.
After a quick medal ceremony, Phelps changed his three-quarter body swimsuit for one that merely goes from waist to ankles, jumped back into the pool, and won his semi-final of the 200 metres butterfly in 1:53.70, tying his own Olympic record from Athens. He’d less than 50 minutes between swims.
“The ball’s starting to roll,” Phelps said. “Last year in Melbourne (at the world championships) one swim started it, and then swims just started happening one after another after another. We had a great morning this morning and hopefully we can set up some more good swims tonight and keep the ball rolling.”
Two of yesterday’s other two finals went to Americans: Aaron Peirsol won the 100 metres backstroke in a world record time of 52.54, while in the final of the women’s 100 metres backstroke, Natalie Coughlin became the first swimmer to successfully defend her title in the event after holding off the fast-finishing challenge of Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry, who had set a world record in the semi-finals, the American winning in 58.96.
So where is this going to end? With eight gold medals, no doubt. It’s surely dawned on Phelps by now that eight is a lucky number in China, and looks like being lucky for him as well.
