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August 15, 2004 11:50 pm

Phelps, Thorpe to go toe-to-toe

By VICKI MICHAELIS

USA Today

ATHENS, Greece — Much more than the heavyweight title of world's greatest swimmer awaits Monday at the Olympic pool.

If the United States’ Michael Phelps touches the wall first in his Olympic showdown with Australian Ian Thorpe in the 200-meter freestyle, he will beat not only swimming's pop idol but also doubt about whether he can match Mark Spitz's gold medal high mark. With a victory, he will rise closer to the stratosphere of U.S. sports stardom and begin to build a solid platform for his campaign to make swimming more popular in the United States.

If the 19-year-old from suburban Baltimore doesn't win, he lets the air out of it all.

Phelps still could tie the Spitz standard of seven gold medals over the next six days, but Sunday's loss by the U.S. 4x100 relay means he must beat Thorpe to do it. Down to six events, he will have to win his four remaining individual events (he's favored only in two), and the United States will have to win the two remaining relays.

He still could boost swimming's status, but his footing will be more fleeting. Without a win against Thorpe in a freestyle event, he leaves the question mark still hanging on his No. 1 status in the sport.

That the crux of Phelps' quest — both the smaller picture of pursuing Spitz's 32-year-old record and the wide-lens view of elevating his sport in his swimming lifespan — should come down to Monday’s race should be no surprise.

For Phelps, the 5 a.m. wake-up calls, the 80,000-meter weeks in the pool and the lung-busting speed workouts never have been about beating Spitz. He wants to beat Thorpe.

He already has once, winning their only previous head-to-head, the 200 individual medley in the 2003 World Championships. Phelps was so far ahead of the field that Thorpe, 21, finished more than two seconds behind him and still placed second.

That wasn't good enough. Thorpe, a freestyle specialist, was dabbling in the individual medley, Phelps' turf. Phelps holds the world records in the 200 and 400 IM, events that combine all four swim strokes. Phelps wants to beat Thorpe at his own game.

When Phelps and his coach, Bob Bowman, sat down after the U.S. Olympic trials last month to discuss Phelps' Athens schedule, Bowman dangled dropping the 200 free. Phelps' answer: No way.

"I wanted to race Thorpe in a freestyle event before either one of us is done," Phelps said.

In the four years since the last Olympics, where the Netherlands' Pieter van den Hoogenband shocked Thorpe and host Australia by winning the 200 free, Thorpe has ruled the 200 and 400 free, setting world records in each and winning them in the last two World Championships.

But on the opening day of the Athens competition, minutes after Phelps cruised to a world-record victory in the 400 IM, Thorpe barely held off countryman Grant Hackett to win the 400 free. Thorpe's narrow margin of victory (0.26 seconds) in an event he hasn't lost since 1998 kick-started speculation that he might be vulnerable in the 200.

"I think my 200 will be much faster than my 400 indicated," Thorpe said. "It better be, or I'll be very, very angry with myself."

Thorpe set his world record in the 200 (1:44.06) in 2001 but rarely has approached that speed since. He hasn't gone under 1:45 in two years.

Even so, Phelps will need the freestyle swim of his life Monday to be in medal contention. Asked before the Games where he would rate Phelps among the 200 free competitors, Bowman put him fourth behind, in no particular order, Hackett, Thorpe and van den Hoogenband. In Sunday's semifinals, van den Hoogenband was first, Thorpe second, Phelps third and Hackett fifth.

Thorpe called the field "a star lineup," mentioning Hackett and van den Hoogenband, but not Phelps, by name. Hackett has swum the second-fastest 200 this year, behind Thorpe, and van den Hoogenband is the only man besides Thorpe to go under 1:45.

"This is the best opportunity for me to swim in the fastest 200 free heat in history," Phelps said. "I'm going to hopefully go in and do a best time."

Phelps' fastest time in the event (1:45.99, in the 2003 summer nationals) is the U.S. record. Coming during a period when Phelps was testing his potential in the event — he competed in it for the first time in last year's spring nationals — it was fast enough to land him just behind Thorpe in last year's world rankings.

Asked in recent months which swim stroke was feeling the best in practice, Phelps singled out the freestyle. The 1:46.27 that Phelps posted in his 200 free victory in the Olympic trials "didn't show nearly what he's done in training," Bowman said.

Added Bowman, "He's gotten a lot more efficient in his technique."

If Phelps can translate training into victory Monday, he will settle the debate that has been splashing at his heels since he broke five world records and won four gold medals in last year's World Championships. Many insiders said that performance signaled a changing of the guard at the sport's summit, from Thorpe to Phelps. Others contended Phelps would have to come through at the Olympics for there to be consensus.

"As much as we think swimming means world records and world championships and national titles," Olympic swimming star Janet Evans said, "what goes down in the history books is Olympic medals."

When Phelps announced he would take on Thorpe in the 200 free in Athens, Bowman said, "We'll have the best against the best at their best. Then there won't be any conjecture in the papers. We'll know."

Thorpe was branded the world's best swimmer at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where he won three gold medals (one individual and two relays) and two silvers. Although his titular status was bestowed in the whirl of a swimming-crazed host country, he justified the adulation in the 2001 World Championships, winning six gold medals — three in individual events (the 200, 400 and 800 free) and three in relays. A year later, he won six golds again in the Commonwealth Games, as well as a silver in the 100 backstroke.

The performances churned chatter about the Spitz standard, and Thorpe fed it by testing himself in backstroke and IM events. When none yielded the dominance he has enjoyed in freestyle, he backed off and warns against placing the same yoke of expectation on Phelps.

"Anything that's short of (seven golds) will be deemed as failure," said Thorpe, competing in six events (the 100, 200 and 400 free and three relays). "We should be judging him on his own performances rather than trying to compare him to someone else."

While the Spitz comparisons have cropped up only since Phelps wowed at the 2003 worlds, he and Thorpe have been mentioned in the same breathless context for two years. Thorpe won his first world title at 15, Phelps at 16. Thorpe broke his first world record at 16, Phelps at 15. Both are physically built for speed . Thorpe, at 6-5, 225, has size 17 feet that act as flippers. Phelps, at 6-4, 195 pounds, has an elongated torso to help him glide and a 6-6 wingspan to power him.

In a sport where most athletes labor in anonymity, both were millionaire endorsers well before 20. Phelps will earn an additional $1 million bonus from swimming apparel sponsor Speedo if he matches or beats Spitz's medal total here or in the 2008 Games.

Speedo vice president Stu Isaac calls the bonus, proposed by Phelps' agent a year ago, a "grabber," something to generate attention in a U.S. sports culture that measures its athletes more by contract numbers than by athletic accomplishment.

"Promoting the sport is the biggest thing that I want to do," Phelps said. "I want to make the sport as big as I can. I can't say enough that swimmers don't get enough coverage or enough publicity. For me personally, I want it to change."

Phelps frequently relates his mission to popularize swimming in the United States to what Thorpe, an icon of rock-star proportions in Australia, has done. Thorpe, though, had an easier time mesmerizing a country where pro sports only dot rather than crowd the landscape and swimming stars already were deified.

Bob Williams, the president of Burns Sports Celebrity Service, calls Phelps' aim "noble" but basically impossible, noting that, in the years after Spitz swept his Olympic events and the United States into a momentary swimming frenzy, "nothing changed — except the number of sports competing for fans' attention increased."

If Phelps is to do more, he knows he must have even more impressive feats on his swimming résumé, including a win against Thorpe Monday.

He met Thorpe the first time at the 2000 Olympics, where the 15-year-old Phelps finished fifth in his only event, the 200 butterfly. He saw Thorpe again at the 2001 worlds in a warm-down pool.

"All the sudden I saw this big, black suit fly by me," Phelps once recalled. "I flew up against the lane ropes. That was definitely a little scary."

Monday, scared no more, he only wants to see Thorpe behind him. So much more could then lie ahead.

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