A Little Off the Mark

When the other swimmers climbed out on the left side of the pool, Michael Phelps dazedly exited on the right.

When the others departed in a pack, Phelps walked off alone.

When the others were enveloped in cheers, Phelps was jeeringly serenaded by the Australian swim team singing, “Waltzing Matilda.”

Three days, three Olympic medals -- and one big fat Greek failure?

The road to becoming Mark Spitz ended here Monday, having twisted from blind curve to sharp drop to dead end, and not a bit of it fair.

*

He swam the freestyle race of his life. He might as well have been dog paddling.

He set a U.S. record, swam a time that would have won a gold medal in Sydney. Years from now, it will be remembered as four laps of Marco Polo.

Michael Phelps finished third in the all-star 200-meter freestyle Monday, losing to the two best freestyle swimmers in the world, being the best Michael Phelps he could be.

But it didn’t matter because he wasn’t Mark Spitz.

The bronze medal circled his neck not like a prize, but a noose, his highly publicized quest to equal Spitz’s seven gold medals rendered mathematically moot. He has one gold medal -- and five events left.

“In a lot of ways, it’s just not right,” said teammate Lenny Krayzelburg.

No, but it’s as American as the cover of a Wheaties box, and the price one pays for shooting for that box and missing.

Phelps’ 10-month public push to win seven gold medals had been good for his wallet and fun for his sponsors. It had created credibility for his agents, sound bites for his coach and hot type for the media.

Now, it’s chlorine eyes for everybody.

First, it’s lousy for his U.S. teammates, two of whom won gold medals that went largely unnoticed Monday because the media were focused on Phelps’ alleged flop.

Aaron Peirsol and Natalie Coughlin won the men’s and women’s 100-meter backstroke events, yet most reporters saw only glimpses of the races on monitors while chasing down quotes from Phelps.

The swimmers have five more days, yet the perception is that because the Spitz chase is over, the meet is over.

“Michael has handled this great, he’s a great teammate,” said Krayzelburg, who finished fourth in the 100-meter backstroke. “But all of this takes away from the fact we have a great team.”

But, mostly, it’s bad for Phelps, and that’s too bad.

He’s a 19-year-old kid who dared to dream big, and now he’ll be nailed to those dreams, and for what?

Because he didn’t realize the Olympics could be so tough?

“This is a whole lot different than the trials,” he said. “This is a lot more emotionally draining.”

Because he didn’t understand the effect of winning his first gold medal, in his first race on Saturday?

“I celebrated in the water pretty hard; it took a lot out of me,” he said.

Or maybe he should be ripped because, in the 400 freestyle relay Sunday, when Ian Crocker was allowed to swim with a sore throat, the team never had a chance?

“If that relay had gone differently, right now we’d be saying something different,” said Bob Bowman, Phelps’ personal coach.

Maybe folks will criticize him for swimming for the money, for the $1-million Spitz-catching bonus offered by Speedo, but who among us wouldn’t?

“It was a nice bonus,” Phelps said, shrugging. “It was in my mind; it definitely was.”

If anybody is to blame here, it’s his agents at Octagon, who relentlessly pushed the quest far beyond that of just a kid simply trying to swim fast.

Next time, we hope, they will understand -- or Phelps will make them understand -- that tracking such elusive history is best done in the stealth of night and barely above a whisper.

Phelps will probably swim to medals in his remaining five events. If he does, he’ll have eight for the Games, probably the most among any of the 10,500 athletes here, but you know what his most impressive feat will have been?

Chasing Mark Spitz all the way to Beijing in 2008.

“You definitely don’t want to count anything out,” Phelps said with a smile.

Why not? It is this crazy American quest, after all, that makes Phelps so truly American. Land of the free, pool of the brave.

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.