Up-and-down day for USA’s Phelps
MONTREAL – Michael Phelps was a flop in the morning, an exhausted, beaten swimmer.
By evening, he was a winner again – with help from his American teammates.
Phelps recovered from a stunning collapse in his first event of the World Swimming Championships – he didn’t even advance past the preliminaries – to lead off a dominating U.S. victory in the 400-meter freestyle relay Sunday night.
Phelps, Neil Walker, Nate Dusing and Jason Lezak set a meet record with a time of 3 minutes, 13.77 seconds, beating runner-up Canada by nearly three seconds. Australia took the bronze.
The relay victory put Phelps in a much better frame of mind after his performance in the 400 free. He entered the event hoping to challenge Australian star Grant Hackett and get started on matching that six-gold, eight-medal haul from the Athens Olympics.
Instead, Phelps didn’t even get past the prelims.
He faded badly after his last flip to wind up next-to-last in his heat and 18th overall. Hackett went on to an easy victory in the final, snapping a streak of runner-up finishes that included the last two world championships and the 2004 Athens Olympics.
“I’m happier tonight than I was this morning,” Phelps said. “I’m pleased with my race. It’s definitely a step up from this morning, and we have more races ahead.”
In the relay, Phelps got off to one of his typically slow starts, touching fifth at the 50-meter mark. But he had the Americans out front by the time he passed off the pool to Walker.
From there, it was easy. The only question was whether the U.S. team would break the world record, but they came up just short of South Africa’s mark (3:13.17) from the Athens Games.
The Americans did break the meet record set by the Russians (3:14.06) at Barcelona two years ago, and won their first world championship in the event since 1998.
“Our next big goal is to break the world record,” Phelps said. “It’s great for us to get this race back.”
Other winners on the first night of swimming: Australia in the women’s 400 free relay and France’s Laure Manaudou in the women’s 400 free.
Manaudou, the defending Olympic champion, nearly pulled a Phelps, claiming the last spot in the final with the eighth-fastest time in the prelims. She then swam nearly five seconds better in the evening to take the gold.
Manaudou built a big lead and held off Japan’s hard-charging Ai Shibata in 4:06.44. Great Britain’s Caitlin McClatchey was third.
“Well, I definitely feel better than this morning,” Manaudou said. “My coach said things to motivate me. He told me I was the best and that no one could beat me.”
The morning swim is supposed to be a formality for someone of Phelps’ caliber, but he wasn’t even close to advancing at Parc Jean-Drapeau. He trailed the last of the eight qualifiers by more than 1 1/2 seconds.
With Phelps out of the way and countryman Ian Thorpe skipping the meet, Hackett coasted to the first swimming gold of the championships.