The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Tuesday, August 12, 2008; E01
Michael Phelps of the U.S.swims in his men's 200 meters butterfly heat at the National Aquatics Center during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 11, 2008.(David Gray/Reuters)
BEIJING- At this Olympics, China has everything. America has Michael Phelps. So far it looks like a fair fight.
Phelps knows the nature of the battle. The 23-year-old isn't just trying to surpass Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals. During 17 days when China seeks every chance to upstage the United States, Phelps is carrying America's banner.
As he stood behind Lane 6 before the 200-meter freestyle on Tuesday, preparing for the only individual race he entered but didn't win in Athens, Phelps kept his robe around him, like a heavyweight boxer awaiting the instant of his introduction to drop his robe and reveal the body that is about to inflict defeat.
No sooner were the words, "world record holder" out of the announcer's month than Phelps, bouncing on his toes, dropped the veil. The race might as well have been over. Phelps won by nearly two seconds and set a world record of 1 minute 42.96 seconds.
In just the fourth day of this Olympics, Phelps is not merely America's best athlete, but the entire squad's leader. At the moment he hit the wall, he had three gold medals while the rest of the 596-person U.S. delegation had only one.
Within minutes two more Americans, Natalie Coughlin and Aaron Peirsol, collected backstroke golds. Word spreads fast at an Olympics. Soon, the U.S. men's gymnasts were hunting an unexpected prestigious medal, and eventually took bronze.
Michael Phelps of the U.S. prepares to swim in the men's 200 meters butterfly semi-final at the National Aquatics Center during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 12, 2008.(David Gray/Reuters)
America needs all the adrenaline it can muster from watching Phelps. Every moment here seems consumed by some visible testimonial to China -- its athletes, people or architecture, as well as the government orchestrating it all.
China's soaring futuristic buildings are everywhere. When your taxi driver gets lost, you hope he never finds the proper turn because every new vista looks more fresh and exciting than the last. True, Beijing has farmed out its design work to the most famous architects all over the world. We can mock their makeover as checkbook modernity. But they get to live in it.
At the Games themselves, the Chinese can swell their chests as they prance to the podium. They don't just want to claim the 21st century, they'd like to do it soon. They're gifted grim grinders. Identify a flaw and they'll erase it.
At government suggestion they've even stopped spitting in public. The litter that once defined Beijing has been replaced by a scary immaculateness. In 12 days I haven't spotted a speck of rubbish. Not a stray cigarette butt or soda bottle in a city of 15 million. When China makes up its mind, everybody marches. Now, the goal is hoarding commodities -- gold, silver and bronze.
In the face of this, restrain your alarm. In one corner, we've got 1.3 billion Chinese, many of them still standing ramrod straight at 3 a.m. guarding street lamps. In the other, we have one big, laid-back lunk of a swimmer from Bal'mer. And his quest for eight golds in an Olympics that began at 8:08 on 8/8/08 is now looking just fine, thanks.
Suddenly, his toughest individual event is behind him -- the 400-meter individual medley that he won on Sunday in world record time. Also, his most likely upset, in the 400-meter freestyle relay that the U.S. lost in the last Olympics, was surmounted on Monday. That gold was salvaged for him by .08 of a second by Jason Lezak who swam an anchor leg that Confucius couldn't match.
(L-R) Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale, Cullen Jones and Jason Lezak of the U.S. celebrate with their gold medals after winning the men's 4x100m freestyle relay swimming final at the National Aquatics Center during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 11, 2008.(David Gray/Reuters)
Phelps's dominance Tuesday fed off the karmic energy provided by Lezak. "I don't think I've ever celebrated that much after a race in my life," said Phelps on Monday night. "Five of the teams broke the world record. . . . We broke the world record by four seconds and won by eight one-hundredths of a second.
"Four guys [had to] swim the perfect race. We swam that perfect race," Phelps added. "They were showing the replay and I just started cracking up [at] mine and Garrett [Weber-Gale's] reaction. I let out a pretty fierce yell. . . . [Jason] swam an amazing race."
With the sense he's peaking at the proper time and has dodged a silver bullet in the relay, Phelps is just stroking and smoking. Like speedskater Eric Heiden when he won five individual golds (an Olympic record Phelps can match) at Lake Placid, he's going from strength to strength.
In 1980, you could hear Heiden's skates make an entirely different sound from others -- screeching as they crushed the ice in the turns. Here, the indelibly individual image may the sight of Phelps in the butterfly (his best event) that is indelibly different. In a 200-meter fly prelim Monday, Phelps entire upper body seemed to be out of the water, almost exposing his gills. Dolphins resent him.
When the final image, the world-wide snap shot of this Olympics is delivered, will it be of the 91,000-seat Bird's Nest with the 400-yard-long HDTV screen ringing the entire roof of the stadium? Will it be the $40 billion, a price tag no democracy could justify, that China paid for a can-we-rejoin-the-world-now infomercial?
Or will it be a picture of the rumple-haired not-quite-indecently exposed Phelps as he makes the most stunning Olympic venue -- the Water Cube -- his personal athletic property. Okay, China gets to keep it. But he owns it.
Michael Phelps of the U.S. celebrates with his gold medal after winning the men's 200m freestyle final at the National Aquatics Center during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 12, 2008.REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay (CHINA)
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At the center of the storm, Phelps seems to be the calm eye. "I'm just here enjoying myself," he said. "I never experienced a campus dorm room [so] I enjoy the [Olympic] Village. . . . I stay in my room and watch movies or we sit around playing Spades all day."
Away from the Water Cube, China's grand Olympic plan -- Project 119 -- is showing its results. It's not a complex concept: 1.3 billion people realize the Olympics are full of arcane sports. So, let's storm 'em.
That "119" is the medal count in five sports in which China's done poorly, including kayak and canoe (12 gold medals), rowing (14) and sailing (10). Every day, China goes prospecting for that cheap gold. Meanwhile, soccer, basketball, tennis, hockey and baseball offer just nine golds.
Every hour, China seems to crow. The U.S. team, with track in drug-cheating disrepute and the Redeem Team still suspect, needs a hero to ignite 595 others. Luckily, there is one. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday: gold. With five more days of swimming, it's now plausible, not merely possible, that there will be five more to come.
China has thrown down the gauntlet to the world. Day after day, Michael Phelps waits till his name is called, then throws down his robe and answers.
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