Another Record Falls to Phelps

Tom Malchow went through the ways it might be possible to catch his U.S. teammate, Michael Phelps, proposing a unique idea for leveling the playing field. Or, in this case, the swimming pool.

Weight allowances.

“I don’t know, they ... handicap horses by adding extra weight to them,” he said, joking. “So we might have to see if we can switch to maybe weighting him. Other than that, it’s just going to take a lot of hard work.”

Seabiscuit meets Sea-Phelps.

Joking aside, Malchow is no pushover. The former University of Michigan star won a gold medal in the 200-meter butterfly at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 but now finds himself back with the rest of the pack in Phelps’ wake at the world swimming championships at Palau Sant Jordi.

Malchow isn’t the only one. Australian star Grant Hackett went head-to-head with Phelps in the opening leg of the 800 freestyle relay Wednesday and found himself in second place as the 18-year-old from Baltimore established an American record in the 200-meter freestyle. Australia won the relay (7 minutes, 08.58 seconds) and the foursome of Phelps, Nate Dusing, Aaron Peirsol and Klete Keller placed second in 7:10.26.

Phelps’ latest individual record, of 1 minute 46.60 seconds, erased a mark that was almost three years old, set by Josh Davis (1:46.73) in August 2000. It came one day after Phelps set the world record in the 200 butterfly in the semifinals, and less than an hour after he won the gold medal at that same distance, recording the second-fastest time ever, in 1:54.35. Takashi Yamamoto of Japan won the silver in 1:55.52, and Malchow, who still trains in Ann Arbor, Mich., was third in 1:55.66.

“Michael’s just had a great rise the last couple of years as far as setting world records and things,” Dusing said. “There’s no stopping him right now. He’s going to keep getting better and better as long as he keeps his head on straight.”

Said Phelps: “Tonight, I was very happy with the 200 fly. I definitely would have liked to break the world record again. Leading off the relay in an American record time was a goal of mine that I had. And we set the American record in the 800 relay as well.”

The untrained eye might believe almost any swim resulting in any record would have to be close to a perfect performance.

Not exactly. Coaches know it when they see it. And such are the lofty standards that Coach Bob Bowman wasn’t overly impressed with the first relay leg from his talented protege.

“He can swim faster than 1:46,” Bowman said. “I don’t know how fast he can ultimately be. But there are so many things -- he can drop a second off the turns in that race. The turns were atrocious. It wasn’t like a perfect swim. Particularly, his third turn was ridiculous. He took a breath right into it and it took an eternity to get his heels over.

“That was when Grant was starting to weaken a little bit. He was going into the turn, he could have really accelerated and made an Ian-like move. Instead he stopped his momentum and then started. I guess that makes the last 50 more impressive since he sort of started from zero.”

Ian would be Ian Thorpe. The Australian star, who won his third gold medal of the worlds, swam the anchor leg against Keller, not Phelps.

“It would have been exciting,” Phelps said. “I’ve never swum against him in any freestyle event, for sure it would have been exciting. Either or, him or Hackett. Hackett was a good race.”

It was the first time the four Americans had been put together on this relay. Peirsol, who turned 20 on Wednesday, said it was also his first time in the final of a freestyle relay on an international level. It was his second medal in two days, coming after his gold in the 100 backstroke.

Phelps and Dusing kept the U.S. in the lead for the first two legs, and Peirsol finished his leg, trailing by 0.02, which was much closer than the U.S. had been against the Australians in a long time. Then, of course, Thorpe took over the race, going 1:44.41 in his split to Keller’s 1:45.99.