BEIJING — One of the few remaining men standing between Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz at the Beijing Olympics looks as if he should be working behind the counter of a video store, not racing to ruin Phelps’s cinematic ending.
Ryan Lochte, the primary rival of Phelps in the individual medleys, has sleepy eyes and a pattern of speech in which the sentences rolls off his tongue like gently breaking waves. Lochte, who is from Daytona Beach, seems as if he should be hanging 10 at the nearest beach, but Friday morning at the National Aquatics Center, he was trying to ride a huge wave of momentum as far as it would carry him.
Lochte started out with a come-from-behind upset of his countryman Aaron Peirsol in the 200-meter backstroke, winning his first individual Olympic gold medal.
The race ended at 10:21 a.m. local time. Twenty-nine minutes later was his showdown against Phelps in the 200 I.M., and a less-than-fresh Lochte was no match for Phelps.
But then, neither was anyone else. Pulling away from the field in the breaststroke — his weakest leg — Phelps won his sixth gold medal and set his sixth world record. He was timed in 1:54.23, finishing more than a bodylength ahead of the silver medalist, Laszlo Cseh of Hungary. Lochte nearly caught Cseh at the end but settled for third.
In the semifinals, Lochte had 44 minutes between the swims. “So cutting that in half is going to be interesting,” he said Thursday night with a wry — or was that sly? — smile.
While Lochte shrugged off the degree of difficulty of his double, others were less blasé. Eddie Reese, the U.S. Olympic men’s coach, said, “This double’s unbelievable.”
What Lochte was attempting did seem ludicrous. It was the swimming equivalent of going up against Pete Sampras at Wimbledon and then, after a rest lasting not that much longer than a changeover, squaring off against Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde in doubles.
Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, who competed here in the women’s 200 I.M. and 200 backstroke but on different days, described Lochte’s double as “insane.” She said she saw him at the Short Course World Championships in England earlier this year when he swam the 200 backstroke and 100 I.M. finals with less than 30 minutes’ rest and told him: “You’re crazy. How are you doing this?”
The 200 backstroke is arguably the hardest on the legs of all the swimming races because of the kicking on one’s back and the dolphin-kicking off the walls. But the hardest part of the double, Lochte said, is not physical but psychological.
“There’s a physical part, but I’ve trained for it,” he said. “I’m used to it. The biggest part for me is the psychological part. Just getting ready for one race and then being able to separate that race and go into the next one. No matter what the outcome is you got to separate it and just move on.”
By now, it is obvious how large an obstacle Lochte was facing in Phelps, who has been America’s gold standard in the 200 I.M. since 2002. Going into the summer, Phelps had 7 of the 10 fastest swims in the event, with Lochte owning the other three.
But as Phelps closed in on Spitz’s record of seven golds in a single Olympics, Lochte’s other American rival was quietly making history. With his victory Tuesday in the 100 backstroke, Peirsol became the first swimmer since Roland Matthes in 1972 to successfully defend his Olympic title in that event.
Matthes, an East German, also pulled off back-to-back victories in the 200 backstroke, a feat Peirsol dearly wanted to match. Standing in his way was Lochte, who handed Peirsol his first loss in the 200 in seven years at the 2007 world championships.
Like the golfer who has to take chances off the tee to have a chance against Tiger Woods, Phelps and Peirsol have been so dominant in their events that their rivals have to alter their strategies to have any hopes of beating them.
When Lochte and Phelps, both 23, met in the 400 I.M. here, Lochte took it out faster than he normally would, hoping to gain a lead over Phelps in the first 200 and then hang on. He did take the lead briefly, at the 150 mark, but tired down the stretch and faded to third.
The 24-year-old Peirsol is known for his strong back halves, and so the obvious strategy against him is to build an early lead and try to hang on. But Friday morning, Lochte and Peirsol had to chase down Arkady Vyatchanin of Russia, who led most of the race and was first going into the last turn.
Lochte was timed in 1 minute 53.94 seconds, 0.38 of a second better than the world record he had held jointly with Peirsol, who finished second in 1:54.33. Vyatchanin, who won a swim-off to earn a berth in the final, ended up with the bronze medal.
Phelps’s coach, Bob Bowman, who knows an ambitious schedule when he sees it, described Lochte’s task Friday as “very formidable.” He added: “You’re taking on the best competitor in both. My hat’s off to him.”
Lochte started out with a come-from-behind upset of his countryman Aaron Peirsol in the 200-meter backstroke, winning his first individual Olympic gold medal.
The race ended at 10:21 a.m. local time. Twenty-nine minutes later was his showdown against Phelps in the 200 I.M., and a less-than-fresh Lochte was no match for Phelps.
But then, neither was anyone else. Pulling away from the field in the breaststroke — his weakest leg — Phelps won his sixth gold medal and set his sixth world record. He was timed in 1:54.23, finishing more than a bodylength ahead of the silver medalist, Laszlo Cseh of Hungary. Lochte nearly caught Cseh at the end but settled for third.
In the semifinals, Lochte had 44 minutes between the swims. “So cutting that in half is going to be interesting,” he said Thursday night with a wry — or was that sly? — smile.
While Lochte shrugged off the degree of difficulty of his double, others were less blasé. Eddie Reese, the U.S. Olympic men’s coach, said, “This double’s unbelievable.”
What Lochte was attempting did seem ludicrous. It was the swimming equivalent of going up against Pete Sampras at Wimbledon and then, after a rest lasting not that much longer than a changeover, squaring off against Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde in doubles.
Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, who competed here in the women’s 200 I.M. and 200 backstroke but on different days, described Lochte’s double as “insane.” She said she saw him at the Short Course World Championships in England earlier this year when he swam the 200 backstroke and 100 I.M. finals with less than 30 minutes’ rest and told him: “You’re crazy. How are you doing this?”
The 200 backstroke is arguably the hardest on the legs of all the swimming races because of the kicking on one’s back and the dolphin-kicking off the walls. But the hardest part of the double, Lochte said, is not physical but psychological.
“There’s a physical part, but I’ve trained for it,” he said. “I’m used to it. The biggest part for me is the psychological part. Just getting ready for one race and then being able to separate that race and go into the next one. No matter what the outcome is you got to separate it and just move on.”
By now, it is obvious how large an obstacle Lochte was facing in Phelps, who has been America’s gold standard in the 200 I.M. since 2002. Going into the summer, Phelps had 7 of the 10 fastest swims in the event, with Lochte owning the other three.
But as Phelps closed in on Spitz’s record of seven golds in a single Olympics, Lochte’s other American rival was quietly making history. With his victory Tuesday in the 100 backstroke, Peirsol became the first swimmer since Roland Matthes in 1972 to successfully defend his Olympic title in that event.
Matthes, an East German, also pulled off back-to-back victories in the 200 backstroke, a feat Peirsol dearly wanted to match. Standing in his way was Lochte, who handed Peirsol his first loss in the 200 in seven years at the 2007 world championships.
Like the golfer who has to take chances off the tee to have a chance against Tiger Woods, Phelps and Peirsol have been so dominant in their events that their rivals have to alter their strategies to have any hopes of beating them.
When Lochte and Phelps, both 23, met in the 400 I.M. here, Lochte took it out faster than he normally would, hoping to gain a lead over Phelps in the first 200 and then hang on. He did take the lead briefly, at the 150 mark, but tired down the stretch and faded to third.
The 24-year-old Peirsol is known for his strong back halves, and so the obvious strategy against him is to build an early lead and try to hang on. But Friday morning, Lochte and Peirsol had to chase down Arkady Vyatchanin of Russia, who led most of the race and was first going into the last turn.
Lochte was timed in 1 minute 53.94 seconds, 0.38 of a second better than the world record he had held jointly with Peirsol, who finished second in 1:54.33. Vyatchanin, who won a swim-off to earn a berth in the final, ended up with the bronze medal.
Phelps’s coach, Bob Bowman, who knows an ambitious schedule when he sees it, described Lochte’s task Friday as “very formidable.” He added: “You’re taking on the best competitor in both. My hat’s off to him.”
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