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Moment, not medal, is golden in Phelps' test against the best

Laura Vecsey

August 17, 2004

Pieter van den Hoogenband, Ian Thorpe, Michael Phelps

From left, Pieter van den Hoogenband was second, Ian Thorpe first and Michael Phelps third in the 200-meter freestyle. (Sun photo by Karl Merton Ferron / August 16, 2004)

ATHENS - He liked it. He loved it. Big waves hitting him in the face.

It was the wake of swimmers ahead of him in the pool, the waves of swimmers faster than him.

How often can Michael Phelps say that: swimmers faster than him?

He can say that here, at the Olympics that were supposed to be all about him, except it never works out that way. Somewhere between what was supposed to be and what is, that's where we find Michael Phelps' greatest Olympic achievement.

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He didn't want to win as much as he wanted the challenge.

They have a word for that in Greek. Ateri. It's an ancient word that means, roughly, the right priorities. Oddly, his swim club and home pool back home printed T-shirts with that word printed on the back. They knew what Phelps' real quest in Athens was. It wasn't about the medals, but the experience.

Last night in the hotly anticipated 200-meter men's freestyle, the marquee race of these Summer Games, Phelps' path to the blue-tiled wall was not quiet water, as it usually is.

It was more like he was crossing the English Channel. Or traversing the Chesapeake - on a windy day.

He was a salmon, swimming against the current, incapable of making up time, of closing the gap. You just don't do that against Ian Thorpe or Pieter van den Hoogenband, who whipped up a storm and dared Phelps to navigate his way through it.

Phelps could not. So what? The pleasure was in the moment - which found Phelps fractions of a second off Thorpe and van den Hoogenband.

Yeah, baby.

Losing never felt so good.

"How can I be disappointed? I swam in a field with the two fastest freestylers of all time," Phelps said last night, smiling.

Those weren't merely Phelps' opponents in lanes 4 and 5. Those guys were role models. They're measuring sticks, film study tutors. They are the inspiration, especially Thorpe.

When Phelps was 13, his coach started making him watch Thorpe on film. This is the way to do it. This is how it's done. Only two years older, Thorpe was a beacon, a challenge. He was the other prodigy, just out of reach, just a little better.

"He has a perfect stroke. It's unbelievable how he moves through the water," Phelps said.

Phelps was the third-fastest swimmer in the world last night. It was no surprise. It was no disappointment.

That he won a bronze in the 200 freestyle is immaterial. So, too, is the fact that he did not win gold, which might sound funny, because this was to be his seven-gold-medal Olympics.

"I had an opportunity," he said about the ballyhooed quest.

Indeed, he did have an opportunity. He was the first swimmer to qualify for six individual events at an Olympics, even though he chose not to swim the 200 backstroke.

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Moment, not medal, is golden in Phelps' test against the best

Laura Vecsey

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Moment, not medal, is golden in Phelps' test against the best

Laura Vecsey

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