KEY POINTS:
The day before the biggest race of his life, Moss Burmester was pottering about in the Olympic village pool.
Michael Phelps was there too. Phelps got out, but had left his towel back in his room. He asked Burmester if he could borrow one.
They are mates, having shared the same water at a training camp in Colorado Springs last year. They had a chat and wished each other well for yesterday's 200m butterfly final.
After the race they shook hands.
"Good job," said Phelps.
He meant it, too, as Burmester's bold swim for fourth - touching at the same instant at China's Wu Peng - pulled Phelps out of his comfort zone to the extent that his ambition to obliterate the world record went. Instead the great American had to settle for a mere 1m 52.09s, shaving .06s off his existing mark.
When Phelps saw the time on the board he did not look overjoyed, just proving that world records don't always mean unrestrained joy.
His reaction might have had something to do with his goggles splitting and filling with water when he dived in. He had to count strokes down each length to help him to judge how far he was from the wall.
Phelps had wanted to dominate the race, but he was obliged to change tack as Burmester caught the field off guard from the edge of the pool.
"Hey, who's the guy in lane one?" one American said to another high in the stands as Burmester touched at 50m 0.03s ahead of Phelps.
"He must be the rabbit," came the reply, in reference to the use of a pacemaker in athletics.
Burmester was no bunny. He had gone out fast, led at the first turn, was still second when the pair turned for home, only to be run down in the last 25m by Hungary's Laszlo Cseh and Japan's Takeshi Matsuda.
His 1:54.35 was 0.64s inside his own national record, but that was small consolation. He was physically shattered and knew his best chance for an Olympic medal may have come and gone in a matter of seconds.
"I gave it everything and had nothing left," he said dejectedly. "I'm disappointed I didn't get up for a medal."
He knew he had to get out of the blocks quicker than his heat and semifinal, but wondered if he had pushed it a shade too hard early. The hurt kicked in just after turning for home.
"The last 40m was really, really tough. You spend the last 10 into the wall feeling like you've got lead arms."
As he approached the finish he had no sense of how close he was. Matsuda won the bronze in 1:52.97, Burmester drifted to be 1.38s behind.
And the Tauranga 27-year-old was not about to blame the stomach complaint that has troubled him in the past few days.
With his fourth gold medal of the meet, Phelps became the greatest Olympic champion of all. It was his 10th gold, eclipsing athletes Paavo Nurmi and Carl Lewis, gymnast Larisa Latynina and swimmer Mark Spitz, whose record of seven golds at one Games he is relentlessly gaining on.
His fifth gold followed soon after in the 4x200m freestyle relay final, with a stunning 6:58.56, with Ryan Lochte, Ricky Berens and Peter Vanderkaay for company.
That capped a morning's action remarkable even by the stellar standards of this meet.
The first four races produced world records, and the session finished with Australian Stephanie Rice grabbing her second world best mark of the week in the 4x200m individual medley, before the American quartet brought the house down, slashing 4.68s off their world record set in Melbourne at last year's world championships.
PHELPS' DIARY
Sunday: 400m individual medley, Gold Medal 4:03.84 WR.
Monday: 4x100m freestyle relay, Gold Medal, 3:08.24 WR.
Tuesday: 200m freestyle, Gold Medal, 1:42.96 WR.
Yesterday: 200m butterfly, Gold Medal, 1:52.03 WR.
Yesterday: 4x200m freestyle relay, Gold Medal, 6:58.56 WR.
Tomorrow: 200m individual medley.
Saturday: 100m butterfly.
Sunday (August 17): 4x100m medley relay.
VERY STRONG BUT NO GONG
As Moss Burmester walked towards the swimmers' holding area before his 200m butterfly final yesterday, head coach Jan Cameron sidled up to him and slipped a piece of paper into his hand.
"I wrote him a little note," said Cameron. "It was just things we talk about and little sayings that are private to him." He read it as he spent his last moments of privacy before he stepped out into the fray.
Beside the pool, Cameron and coach Thomas Ansorg could not believe their eyes when the Tauranga swimmer turned off the wall at 50m ahead of golden boy Michael Phelps.
As Burmester charged for home, fighting fatigue, Cameron broke her habit of sitting quietly during races and leapt to her feet.
She yelled and cheered, "urging him, wishing him forward". At the end, she admitted, there were a few tears. "I think he did everything he could do and he swam it with all his heart and it arouses all the emotion in you. You work hard with them.
"We thought he had a 1.53-high in him. We thought that would podium but as it turns out it wouldn't have. But he backed himself and what more can you do? You go for it - this is the time to do it and he did that."
Cameron was also extremely proud of 200m breaststroke swimmer Glenn Snyders who swam in his semifinal about half an hour after Burmester.
His 2m 12.07s could not match his national record of the heats and was not enough for him to advance to the final, but it was still faster than he had swum before these Games.
- Eugene Bingham
