Phelps’ gold rush hits a bump

DSQ.

That’s how Michael Phelps’ quest for eight gold medals at the World Swimming Championships ended this morning. It unraveled under most unusual circumstances when the U.S. 400-meter medley relay was disqualified in the morning preliminaries after Ian Crocker dived in too early for his butterfly leg.

Unusual? Let us count the ways. Phelps wasn’t even in the water or on the pool deck when the startling turn of events unfolded. He was scheduled to swim the night final of the relay, and two other members of the final relay team, Aaron Peirsol and Brendan Hansen, were back at the hotel resting.

The final day of the meet was supposed to be a Phelps coronation, the final steps toward a record eight gold medals. Phelps has been flawless with six gold medals in six events, and was smoothly moving toward another when he had the fastest qualifying time in prelims for the 400 individual medley, which was shortly before the relay.

His hopes ended by a mere 0.01 seconds. Crocker was on the third leg and dived in too early as breaststroker Scott Usher completed his leg. The allowable time on an exchange is -0.03 and Crocker was at -0.04. The other two members of the relay were Ryan Lochte (backstroke) and Neil Walker (freestyle).

“We don’t ever like to do that,” U.S. assistant coach Eddie Reese said. “It’s rare when we do that. And you never know what causes it. Everybody’s trying to be careful. We knew we were out front.”

Said Walker: “You don’t want to be too slow on the starts or too easy on the starts. You don’t want to give too much up there. You’re gonna want to take every advantage you can, and off the starts, that’s part of it.

“Just an unlucky exchange. That’s all it is.”

A devastated Crocker walked though the mixed zone and shook his head and mumbled something inaudible when asked for comment. He already had been through a difficult few hours, having lost the 100 butterfly to Phelps on Saturday night by the narrowest of margins and looked particularly saddened on the medal stand. No one is more aware of this than Reese, who coached Crocker at Texas and remains his personal coach.

“Ian is very, very sensitive, and we’ll talk about it,” Reese said. “They do take all the starts and look at the tape, and we were off a -.04. Once you’re beyond .03, you’re illegal. But I trust the machine. Since ’88 in Korea, which was my first Olympics, I have not seen one make a mistake.”

And this sort of thing doesn’t happen from the experienced Crocker. “Never in college, and we had a lot more relays then,” Reese said.

The disqualification cast a bit of a cloud on what has been a superb showing for the U.S.

“That puts a little bit of a damper on that,” Reese said. “I didn’t even think about the eight gold medals.”

*

Australian Olympic swimming champion Ian Thorpe said he has “never cheated” and felt confident that “medical and scientific evidence will establish I am innocent.”

The now-retired Thorpe spoke at a packed news conference in Melbourne a day after the French newspaper L’Equipe reported that he allegedly showed “abnormal levels” of testosterone and luteinizing hormone (LH) in an out-of-competition drug test in May.

“I guess I’ve always been remembered in the sport as a hero to a lot of people and I want that to remain,” said the 24-year-old who won five Olympic gold medals.

*

lisa.dillman@latimes.com