Phelps wins 200 fly, then leads relay to gold

ATHENS — A lot of words about Michael Phelps were processed before the swimmer ever got on a plane for Athens. And curiously, two of the most important were never among them.

Team player.

He was viewed, by a lot of circumstances not entirely of his doing, as a lone-wolf type — a guy who was on the U.S. swim team only because it happened to have a box of uniforms and a chartered plane to the Olympics.

His quest to equal Mark Spitz's seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Games — conceived by Phelps and his coach, Bob Bowman, then blown ridiculously out of proportion by a million-dollar bounty offered up by a sponsor — made him look, from afar, like swimming's ultimate me-firster.

Why, some people wanted to know, was Phelps put on America's ill-fated 400 freestyle relay team, when he never bothered to qualify for it at the Olympic trials? Was it just medal-count padding?

Easy, said the veteran men's team coach, Eddie Reese of Texas: The four fastest guys go into the water.

Except the four guys he picked for the first relay team sank to bronze in an event this country once owned. And the remaining relays, rather than easy medals, suddenly started to look like risky, energy-sapping propositions for Phelps.

So listen to how much Phelps resented being asked to swim another race — with a medal by no means secure — on the same night as one of his specialties, the 200 butterfly:

"I wanted to win the 200 fly (and he did), and wanted to break the world record (he didn't)," he said. "But I wanted the 200 relay more than anything. It's the most exciting race I've ever been part of."

Reese, Bowman and fellow coach Jon Urbanchek had conjured up a scheme to make up for the previous relay disaster by stealing the 800 freestyle relay crown back from the Aussies, who ended longtime U.S. dominance in that event at the Sydney Games.

The key was Phelps, who, they reasoned, could blow out early and give the United States a lead it could hang on to. It would be defended by Ryan Lochte and Peter VanderKaay, then brought home by gritty finisher Klete Keller.

Phelps couldn't wait to do it. He wanted the race so badly, it almost threw off his concentration for the day's first gold medal.

When he finished the 200 fly, just off his own world-record pace, the guy barely even reacted. He was off to the war room to reapply the paint for the Aussie battle rejoined.

Phelps swam the first leg in 1 minute, 46.49 seconds — not bad for a guy who had beaten the brains out of the world's best butterfly racers just a bit over one full "Jeopardy!" rerun before.

It gave the American team a lead of more than one second as Lochte went into the water. He held it for the next 100, passing the chore to VanderKaay, who also held it, even extending it by a fingernail or two.

The Aussies, meanwhile, were churning up water right off their shoulders, with Grant Hackett, Michael Klim and Nicholas Sprenger hanging just within striking distance. Experience had shown the boys in chartreuse caps that that was all they needed for the final handoff.

To Ian Thorpe.

The very sight of the black-suited medal thief made Americans in the stands go pale. Thorpedo had launched himself at a similar U.S. relay team in Sydney, grabbing the gold medal for Australia.

Last night, it appeared at first to be another case of U.S. relay hopes sinking Down Under.

Thorpe's opening 50 meters was breathtaking. To everyone's astonishment, he appeared to have chased down and caught America's Keller before their first turn.

Too much, too fast? Seemed like it, sort of. As Bowman would confess, wiping his brow, a bit later, "He's gone out (too fast) and gone for it like that before — and he's gotten us every time."

But Keller stayed cool, calm and fast, swimming his leg in 1:45.53 and out-touching Thorpe by 13-hundredths of a second.

It was sweet vindication for the Americans, who earlier in the evening had, remarkably, failed to qualify a single swimmer in the men's 100-meter freestyle for the first time in Olympic history.

And almost lost in the post-race splashing was the superhuman effort by Thorpe, who, far from letting down his team, had swum the second-fastest leg in event history — 1:44.18, just four-hundredths of a second off his own world-record split time.

All told, it was another classic pool battle between the United States and Australia, two friendly rivals who truly seem to bring out the best in one another.

And none of it likely would have been possible without Phelps, whose one-second besting of the veteran Hackett on the first leg was the true difference in the race.

Add swim-crazy Australia to the list of nations Phelps already has wreaked havoc upon, with half an Olympic swim meet still to go. The Baltimore teen has five medals, three of them gold, in only four nights of splashing. Last night, though, was his first two-fer gold night. And the team win gave it special meaning.

"Being able to win two gold medals in one night, I don't even know what to say about that," he said. "I don't think I've ever celebrated that much."

The Aussies couldn't complain.

"It was a fantastic spectacle of swimming," Klim admitted. "We gave Ian an unbelievable assignment. Unfortunately, we can't expect Ian to be winning all the relays all the time."

Americans can't expect Phelps to do that for them every time, either. But after last night, nobody will be surprised if he's first in line to try.

In seven minutes and seven seconds, the kid went from being a media-hyped spectacle to something of much greater value to U.S. swimming, not to mention a lot of young kids in his home country.

A teammate.

Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or at rjudd@seattletimes.com.