Phelps Ties Spitz Record With 7th Gold - 奧運,世大運,亞運討論

The New York Times
August 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/sports/olympics/16swim.html?hp


Phelps Ties Spitz Record With 7th Gold
By KAREN CROUSE

BEIJING — On his final stroke of the 100-meter butterfly on Saturday
morning, Michael Phelps caught Mark Spitz. Roaring back from seventh at the
50-meter mark, Phelps out-touched Milorad Cavic, a California-born Serb, by
one-hundredth of a second.

Phelps was timed in 50.58 to win his seventh gold medal, tying Spitz’s
record haul from the 1972 Munich Games. The time was a personal best for
Phelps, but not history’s best.

For the first time in these Beijing Games, Phelps failed to set a world
record in a final, falling 18-hundredths of a second short of the
three-year-old mark held by Phelps’s countryman, Ian Crocker, who finished
fourth in 51.13.

Swimming in Lane 5, between Cavic and Crocker, Phelps appeared to have run
out of water to reel in Cavic, who was ahead with five meters to go. He was
still leading with four meters left, with three meters to go, with two and
with one. Stretching for the wall, Cavic must have believed the victory was
his.

Stunningly, it was not. In a finish where you had to trust the clock and not
your eyes, Phelps lunged for the wall with his last stroke and somehow got
there first. Both swimmers turned around to find out their fate, and in the
moment it took for the scoreboard to unscramble the mystery of who won, the
tension inside the National Aquatics Center was palpable.

Upon seeing the No. 1 next to his name, Michael Phelps raised his arms and
let out a roar reminiscent of the one he unleashed Monday after his teammate
Jason Lezak overtook the Frenchman Alain Bernard in the final meter to win
the 4x100 freestyle relay. Lezak’s margin of victory over Bernard was
eight-hundredths of a second, which, in light of Saturday’s finish seemed
cushy.

“When I saw the replay, when I did take that extra half stroke I thought
that had lost the race,” Phelps told reporters. “But I guess when I took
that half stroke that was what I needed. I’m at a loss for words.”

Cavic said: “Losing by one one-hundredth of a second is the most
devastating loss you can have at the Olympics.”

The Serbian team inquired about the result, according to a USA Swimming
spokesperson, but FINA officials broke down the race to the ten-thousandth of
a second and it definitively showed that Phelps’s hand hit the wall first.
Serbia did not file a formal protest.

According to the official rules of swimming’s governing body, the results
recorded by the automated touchpads have precedence of the decisions of the
race’s timekeepers. However, the timekeepers’ results can be used if the
equipment breaks down, if it is “clearly indicated” that the equipment
failed, or if “a swimmer has failed to activate the equipment.”

But Cavic was not too unhappy.

“You have to understand, I came here with the goal to win a bronze,” Cavic
said. “I won a silver and I almost won a gold.”

Cavic’s best time in the event last year was a 53.12, and he had retired in
2006 because he no longer believed he was fast enough to compete at this
level.

It was a transcendent victory for Phelps, who has won here every which way —
by large margins in the 400 individual medley and 200 freestyle, by standing
on the deck in the 4x100 and 4x200 freestyle relays, and by a prayer.

Is there any situation that Phelps cannot turn to his advantage? The night
before the 200 freestyle final, he did not sleep at all. At the start of the
200 butterfly final, his goggles filled with water. Even watching the replay
of the finish in the 100 butterfly, all appeared lost.

“Michael’s one of the rare guys,” Crocker said, “that he can win by huge
margins and when they’re really close races, he’s got the drive to keep
going and he just doesn’t get that tired.”

Phelps is finished with individual races in Beijing. He will swim the third
leg — the butterfly leg — of the 4x100 medley relay on Sunday morning with
a chance to set himself apart in Olympic history with eight golds.

Before Saturday’s race, Phelps’s coach, Bob Bowman, had spoken words that
proved prophetic. “I think what makes it special is he’s so good in this
environment,” he said. “He raises his game in high-pressure situations.”

Until he qualified first in the preliminaries and semifinals, Cavic was
known for getting barred from last year’s European championships for wearing
a T-shirt on the medals stand that read, “Kosovo is Serbia.” Cavic did not
court controversy Saturday — unless you count the finish — wearing his
jacket zipped over his T-shirt during the medal ceremony.

Cavic, a graduate of California, Berkeley, was first at the halfway point at
23.42 — 0.62 of a second ahead of Phelps. Crocker was second but faded down
the stretch.

It is a measure of how high Phelps has raised the bar on expectations that
his teammates were predicting he would turn in the first sub-50 time here. “
Every time he swims, people try to think of an absurd time,” the freestyler
Klete Keller said. “Usually, he ends up doing that time or better.”

Before the race, Bowman refused to make any predictions. “I think we’re
finding out anything’s possible with Michael,” he said.

In his last individual event of his third Olympics, Phelps found a new way
to surprise.


--