Performance Sounds Like Another Broken Record

Michael Phelps received the highest form of praise Thursday -- applause from his fellow swimmers after he finished his semifinal in the 200-meter individual medley. The 18-year-old from Baltimore thrust both arms in the air and flashed the No. 1 sign after his world-record time of 1 minute, 57.52 seconds.

No less an authority than Russia’s Alexander Popov, a four-time Olympic gold medalist who won the 100 freestyle here Thursday, was lending credibility to the sentiment that Phelps is going to be one of the all-time greats.

“He’s not going to be, he already is,” Popov said. “Every race in the 200 butterfly, he’s set the record in the semifinals. Pretty much every race he swims, he sets a new benchmark for everybody. There’s not a lot of swimmers who can do that.”

The semifinals in the world swimming championships at Palau Sant Jordi were supposed to be the first half of Phelps versus Ian Thorpe with the second half coming in today’s final. They went head-to-head for the first time in the semifinal -- had the same reaction time off the blocks -- but the Australian star placed fourth in the heat in 2:00.42.

For Thorpe, the good news is that he managed to squeeze into today’s final, qualifying with the fifth-fastest time. And, for Thorpe, the bad news is that Phelps felt off.

“I wasn’t feeling as good as I would like to in the water, but hopefully tomorrow we can do a little better,” said Phelps, who bettered his world record of 1:57.94 set less than a month ago. “My body didn’t feel right. I didn’t really sleep today, this afternoon. Hopefully some sleeping, eating and some more resting, and we can get through tomorrow.

“Swam the race that I wanted to. I wanted to go out there and break the world record. That was the goal and that’s probably going to be the goal for tomorrow too.”

One thought was that Thorpe was holding something back for today, and, in fairness, he was coming off a final in the 100 freestyle, in which he finished third behind Popov and Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands, less than a half an hour before the IM.

Even Phelps’ coach, Bob Bowman, thought the double Thorpe tried to pull off was “impossible.”

This was Phelps’ second world record in the last three days. The presence of Thorpe, obviously, has elevated the IM and raised the stakes.

“It’s different, he was on the outside [lane] so I really didn’t have a chance to see him too much,” Phelps said of Thorpe, who didn’t comment. “But I think tomorrow he’s going to be more rested and it’s going to be more of an interesting race. It’s because he’s on a pedestal, he is the top swimmer in the world right now. So having him branch out to other events is the same thing as me branching out to other events.”

Ordinarily, the night would have been Popov’s. The 31-year-old won his third world title in the 100, adding to the ones from 1994 and 1998. Popov won in 48.42, beating Van den Hoogenband, who owns the world record and won this race at the 2000 Olympics. For Popov, there was a special symmetry as he won his first Olympic gold medals here in 1992.

“Barcelona has always been a special city in my life. This is a place where I started. In Barcelona, we continue,” he said.

Popov made a point to say that the word “revenge” was not in his vocabulary. And at the urging of photographers, the Dutch swimmer threw his arm around Popov’s shoulder and, improvising, planted a kiss on his cheek.

Earlier, two swimmers with Southern California connections had the fastest qualifying times in the semifinals.

Aaron Peirsol of the Irvine Novaquatics, recorded the second-fastest time ever in the 200 backstroke, in 1:55.82, just behind his own world record of 1:55.12, set in Minneapolis in March 2002.

Peirsol has an eye on another world record, having just missed in the 100 backstroke here.

“The second-fastest, which is pretty cool, so I have the top two best times,” he said. “A 1:54 [today] would be great. That’s been a goal of mine. Sometimes, it takes patience.”

Amanda Beard, who lives in Tucson but grew up in Irvine, went 2:25.54 in the 200 breaststroke semifinals. She described the swim, saying: “Awesome. I didn’t plan to go that fast.”

The woes of Cal’s Natalie Coughlin continued. Still suffering from a fever, she did not make it out of the morning preliminaries of the 100 freestyle, finishing 31st, and dropped out of today’s 200 backstroke. Her fever had been running about 102, but women’s Coach Mark Schubert said she was able to watch the winning relay in the 800 from the stands with her American teammates.

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There was one other world record and another American mark set.

Kosuke Kitajima of Japan set a world record in the 200 breaststroke (2:09.42), and Lindsay Benko, who went to USC, established the American record in the 200 freestyle (1:57.41), which came on the leadoff leg of the 800 freestyle relay. The previous mark, of 1:57.90, was set by Nicole Haislett in 1992.

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The night ended with a medical scare when Elka Graham of Australia collapsed and passed out during the awards ceremony for the 800 freestyle relay. The freestyler had collapsed after a training session in Sydney last month and was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat and low blood pressure.

She looked dizzy as the Australians went up to get their silver medal, and earlier, one of the American gold medalists, Benko, a friend, had tried to support her. The incident left Australian teammate Alice Mills in tears as the U.S. national anthem was played. The Australians called for their trainer, and Graham received assistance. But Graham did not need to be hospitalized, and was resting back at the team hotel and appeared fine, officials said.