Swimming: They're masters of the game

By EUGENE BINGHAM in Athens

By the time the two old pros were gone, the kid was left last in the pool.

Goggles propped on top of his swimming cap, he couldn't stop looking at the scoreboard down the far end, even as he pulled himself up the ladder out of the water.

It was as if he didn't believe what he was reading, but sure enough, there was his name: Phelps, Michael.

No doubt, it wasn't the sight of his name that bothered him so much as the number in front: 3.

Phelps, the 19-year-old American who had dreamed of leaving Athens with eight gold medals, had just given everything he had in what has been billed as swimming's race of the century.

In the 200m freestyle final, he was vanquished by the two men who took the gold and silver in the same race in Sydney - Australian Ian Thorpe and Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband. Four years earlier, van den Hoogenband was the victor. Here, it was Thorpe's turn.

After woo-hooing as loud as he could at the realisation he had won in an Olympic record time, Thorpe turned to his friend van den Hoogenband and boasted: "I guess that makes it one all. I'd like to see you in Beijing [2008 Games]."

Van den Hoogenband laughed.

Later, on the victory dais, he yanked off the garland of olive branches placed on the heads of all medallists, and stepped up to put his arm around Thorpe.

"Where's your hat?" Thorpe joked.

The pair looked like any other old mates having a bit of fun together, only this was being played out on a world stage where the difference between winning and losing can be crushing.

To the left of them, Phelps was not laughing. He smiled, politely, when the medal was presented. After the Australian national anthem was played and Thorpe invited him up to the top step to pose for photographs, he smiled, again, politely. But he was not happy.

In his quest for eight golds, the 200m freestyle was always going to be tough.

Since he was 13, his coach Bill Bowman has made him watch a video of Thorpe in the water. He reckons he has watched the film more than 100 times.

"[Thorpe] has got an unbelievable stroke, it's pretty to watch," Phelps said after yesterday's race. "The other night I was swimming next to him and the first thing I said was, 'Wow, he makes a big wave'. I was right next to him and I still got hammered by the wave."

In Sydney, Thorpe was the 17-year-old star, faced with the pressure of expectation from his home crowd. He bagged three gold medals, a silver and two bronze.

Phelps was a 15-year-old Olympic rookie who went home medal-less.

Athens was billed as the changing of the guard. Phelps set the tone for the swim meet by blitzing a world record and seizing gold in the 400m individual medley on Saturday.

But for him to eclipse Thorpe, a key moment was always going to be the 200m freestyle.

When the swimmers entered the Olympic Aquatic complex, the atmosphere felt like a rock concert.

Music blared and the crowd was ecstatic.

Thorpe was dead-pan, his face fixed with a look of concentration. He sat and did not even stand to acknowledge the crowd when his name was announced.

"It becomes almost mathematical," Thorpe said later. "It becomes a lot easier if you can just let your body do what it has to do."

Phelps was a jangle of nerves. He listened to his I-pod, jumped, stretched, folded his towel, then re-folded it.

At the gun, van den Hoogenband seared away, setting world-record pace.

Thorpe shadowed him, while Phelps was fourth at the first turn.

He recovered for third by the second turn, but he could do no better. The two men in front stayed there, though Thorpe, with a brilliant last turn, glided past to win in 1m 44.71s, an Olympic record. Van den Hoogenband touched in 1m 45.23s, and Phelps 1m 45.32s.

Later, Aaron Peirsol, the US gold medallist in the 100m backstroke, was asked if he stood by his comment this year that Phelps was the best swimmer in the world.

"You know what? I retract that statement. They are the best at what they do - Michael is the best at what he does and so is Thorpe, and you saw that tonight."