By Phillip Whitten
ATHENS, August 19. THE bullet from Baltimore, Michael Phelps, continued on in unstoppable fashion this evening. First, he had to get down to business in the 200 IM; then there was the matter of the semifinal of the 100 fly just a short time later. But it was all in a day’s work for this amazing swimming machine.
The 19-year-old phenom was not going to bust his boiler tonight. As he said at the beginning of the meet, "the Olympics are about medals. World records you can get anytime." Well, maybe you can if your name is Michael Phelps.
As might be expected for a guy whot now has eight of the 10 best times in this event, Phelps led from start to finish. He really was racing himself tonight, despite the presence of a superb international field.
He was outside his Olympic record pace from last night in the fly (+0.27) but nipped under after the backstroke (-0.22), increased it in the breaststroke leg (-1.03) and finally hit the pads in 1:57.14, 1.38 seconds off his own former Olympic record, set only yesterday. The time was the fifth fastest in history.
Ryan Lochte wisely was shooting for silver all the way, but he was back in fifth place at the final turn, though less than half-a-second from second place. Puttng his head down and calling on everything inside himself, the 20-year-old from Florida powered home in 28.19, getting by Brazilian Thiago Pereira, Hungarian Laszio Cseh, then out-touching Trinidad’s George Bovell by just 0.02 of a second at the wall for the silver.
Lochte said of his race," I just came here to have fun and right now I'm having a blast, It's brilliant to swim for the USA at the Olympics."
Bovell (pictured below) just held off Cseh by 0.04 of a second to give Trinidad its first swimming medal ever. :He said of his medal, I feel very prowd for myself and my country, it really hurt and I found the freestyle very hard but I'm so glad I pulled it off."
Since the 2000 Games, a whole new generation of medleyists have arrived on the scene. They respect MIchael Phelps, but he doesn't intimidate them. All between 18 and 20, they have every intention of challenging Phelps and one day knocking him off his throne.
That day may yet come. But it wasn't today. Today belonged to King Michael.
Phelps said after his race, "while I was on the podium receiving my gold medal I was thinking about the 100 fly … I was thinking how I could recover and put all my energy into it."
Men 200m Individual Medley Finals
Record Splits Name NOC Location Date
WR 1:55.94 25.15 54.03 1:28.35 PHELPS Michael USA College Park (USA) 09 AUG 2003
OR 1:58.52 25.24 54.57 1:30.40 PHELPS Michael USA Athens (GRE) 18 AUG 2004
Event No: 23
Rank Lane Name NOC R.T. 50m 100m 150m Time Time
Behind
1 4 PHELPS Michael USA 0.75 (1) 25.51 (1) 54.35
28.84 (1) 1:29.37
35.02 1:57.14
27.77 OR
2 5 LOCHTE Ryan USA 0.66 (5) 26.19 (5) 56.12
29.93 (5) 1:30.59
34.47 1:58.78
28.19 1.64
3 2 BOVELL George TRI 0.80 (6) 26.22 (6) 56.21
29.99 (2) 1:30.16
33.95 1:58.80
28.64 1.66
4 3 CSEH Laszlo HUN 0.83 (3) 25.68 (2) 55.22
29.54 (4) 1:30.43
35.21 1:58.84
28.41 1.70
5 6 PEREIRA Thiago BRA 0.68 (2) 25.59 (3) 55.92
30.33 (3) 1:30.41
34.49 2:00.11
29.70 2.97
6 1 MORI Takahiro JPN 0.73 (7) 26.27 (8) 57.89
31.62 (7) 1:32.32
34.43 2:00.60
28.28 3.46
7 7 JANUSAITIS Vytautas LTU 0.81 (4) 25.92 (4) 56.03
30.11 (6) 1:31.78
35.75 2:01.28
29.50 4.14
8 8 MIKI Jiro JPN 0.65 (8) 26.46 (7) 57.83
31.37 (8) 1:33.16
35.33 2:02.16
29.00 5.02
