Phelps sees Spitz, Lewis, Nurmi on horizon

When the Olympic swimming competition begins Aug. 9, Michael Phelps will enter the pool already recognized as the world's greatest swimmer.

Eight days later, Phelps could leave the Beijing pool as the world's greatest Olympic champion.

While many will be watching to see if Phelps can top Mark Spitz's legendary mark of seven swimming gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Phelps needs just four gold medals to become the all-time Olympic leader in golds -- and bump Spitz from another spot in the Olympic record book.

With four gold medals added to the six he won four years ago at the Athens Olympics, Phelps would have one more than the nine won by Spitz, Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina, Finnish distance runner Paavo Nurmi, and American track star Carl Lewis.

Four gold medals seem likely for Phelps. Eight golds are not farfetched, either. But Phelps prefers not to talk about such predictions. He keeps his goals on a piece of paper next to his bed and doesn't reveal them to anyone besides his longtime coach, Bob Bowman.

"At the Olympic Games, it's a bigger venue and more hype," said Phelps at the Olympic swimming trials. "More publicity. It's just a meet. I'm going to just go in as relaxed as I can."

Phelps holds world records in four of the five individual events he's swimming in Beijing -- the 200-meter freestyle, the 200- and 400-meter individual medleys, and the 200-meter butterfly. And in his fifth event -- the 100-meter butterfly -- he's the defending Olympic champion and has five of the top 10 times ever. The other five times are held by American teammate and world record holder Ian Crocker.

In his three other events, the 4 x 100-meter freestyle, the 4 x 200-meter freestyle, and the 4 x 100-meter medley, U.S. relay teams hold the world records in each.

No less an expert than Spitz thinks Phelps could break his record.

"I would say that based on his experience he gained trying to do it four years ago ... that he has a great chance of doing it," said Spitz, speaking to reporters at the Olympic swimming trials. "Maybe even a better chance, let's put it that way."

Phelps' plan for eight golds in Athens were swamped, as expected, by Australian Ian Thorpe in the 200-meter freestyle, and by an unexpectedly poor race by the Americans in the 4 x 100-meter freestyle, only the second loss ever by the U.S. in Olympic history. Phelps won bronze medals in both events.

Thorpe is retired now, but even if he were still swimming, Phelps has now eclipsed his former world record in the 200 free. He hasn't lost a race in the 200 fly since 2002. His closest competition in the other individual events figures to come from Crocker in the 100 fly, and American teammate Ryan Lochte, who finished a close second to Phelps' world-record breaking performances in the 200 and 400 IM at the U.S. Olympic trials in July in Omaha.

Even though Phelps set two world records at the trials, Spitz suspects he will be much faster at Beijing.

"I would expect that you are going to see him win by margins and set times that have never been done before, and he'll, he'll be unbelievable," said Spitz. "That is what I suspect is going to happen."

Phelps is stronger than he was four years ago, due to weight training and a maturing body, but he's also faster. His long torso and sinewy, flexible limbs slice through the water with remarkable efficiency, enabling him to excel at multiple events in different strokes, unlike most of his competitors who specialize in one stroke. And Phelps' grueling conditioning regimen engineered by Bowman allows him to recover quickly from multiple races on the same day. He likely will swim 17 races in eight days in Beijing, including three on Aug. 11 and Aug. 13.

But the biggest difference between Athens and Beijing for Phelps simply might be the difference between being a teenager and a seasoned 23-year-old. Although Athens was his second Olympics (he finished fifth in the 200 butterfly as a 15-year-old at the 2000 Sydney Olympics), in many ways Phelps was still a wide-eyed 19-year-old there.

"I think having gone through everything I have went through from 2003-2004 leading up to the Olympics and really being thrown into the spotlight, not really knowing how to take it, not knowing really how to handle it, just go for it and have fun," said Phelps. "You know, having all of that happen, going through the last four years and leading up to this point, I think I am more relaxed now than I was four years ago. I mean, that is good for me. I think the more relaxed I am, the better I am so that is just going to be fun for me to step up to the Olympic level and wear the stars and stripes."

(E-mail David Nielsen at nielsend(at)shns.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)