Phelps sets world record, wins first gold medal

BEIJING -- Pre-race wipe down of the starting block. Check.Headphones secured poolside. Check. Double-arm wraparound back slap. Check. Gold medal. World record. One-eighth of the way to immortality. Check. Check. Check. Everything went according to form for Michael Phelps at the Olympic Games Sunday as he won the 400-meter individual medley in 4:03.84 at the National Aquatics Center. Laszlo Cseh of Hungary won the silver in 4:06.16, while American Ryan Lochte took the bronze in 4:08.09. "I wanted to go 4:03," said Phelps moments after the race. "I didn't know if I would. "To be honest I didn't really feel that great," he said. "Going to the ready room, I started getting like kind of like chills up my body. Right then and there I knew I was starting to get more excited." Phelps was challenged early by Lochte, who led after 150 meters, and by Cseh, who closed to within .20 seconds after 200 meters. "I wasn't comfortable after the first 200 and seeing everyone so close together," he said. "That usually is not how it is after the first 200. Usually that's the 300 mark (after the breaststroke). "I think it made my breaststroke a lot stronger. At that point coming home on freestyle is all adrenaline." After 300, Phelps led Lochte by .99 seconds. Aided by a perfect turn at the 350-meter mark, Phelps blitzed through the final freestyle leg extending his lead and cementing his legacy as the best individual medley swimmer ever. For Phelps, this was the first in what is expected to be a run at a record eight gold medals, which would break the mark set by American Mark Spitz at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Among the fans here to see part of history was President Bush. Phelps saw the president in the stands and acknowledged him after the race. "I looked up and saw him after the race, and he nodded and waved the American flag," said Phelps. "That's a pretty special feeling. I waved and nodded my head back. That's definitely pretty neat having the president here tonight and having him cheer us all on." Phelps returns to the pool Sunday evening for the preliminaries of the 200-meter freestyle. He is the world-record holder and has the fastest time in the world this year by 1.55 seconds. But the 200 free is the only individual event in which Phelps competed in Athens that he did not win. Phelps took the bronze, finishing behind Ian Thorpe of Australia and Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands. Thorpe has since retired and van den Hoogenband isn't competing in the 200 free. (E-mail David Nielsen at nielsend(at)shns.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)