Michael Phelps opened his quest to win eight gold medals by qualifying 1.44 seconds faster than his rivals with an Olympic-record time in the 400m individual medley preliminaries last night.
The American won his heat in 4 minutes, 7.82 seconds — 44-hundredths of a second better than his gold-medal-winning time four years ago in Athens. Phelps was under his world-record pace after 150m of the four-stroke race, but eased off to save something for this morning’s final.
Laszlo Cseh of Hungary, the bronze medalist in Athens, was second-fastest in 4 minutes, 9.26 seconds. Luca Marin of Italy was third and American Ryan Lochte qualified fourth.
PHOTO: AFP
Phelps walked onto the deck of the Water Cube for the first of his 17 races in front of 17,000 fans, who were mostly quiet.
If they were aware of Phelps’ attempt to break Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in a single Games, it was not apparent.
He wiped down the starting block in lane four with a white towel as Lochte churned through the final meters of his heat. Phelps first stretched his right leg on the block, then his left before removing his ear buds and getting ready to race.
Phelps and Lochte went one-two at the US trials, with the good friends both going under world-record time. Phelps set the world mark of 4 minutes, 5.25 seconds, while Lochte’s time was the second-fastest ever.
Phelps beat Lochte at last year’s world championships by more than 3.5 seconds.
Still, Lochte is considered a threat to Phelps’ gold rush in both the 400m and 200m individual medleys.
The crowd came alive for the women’s 100m butterfly, where China sent out its first two swimmers of the competition. Zhou Yafei tied Christine Magnuson of the US for second-quickest in 57.70 seconds.
Leading the way was Jess Schipper of Australia in 57.58 seconds.
The other Chinese, Xu Yanwei, was 32nd and did not advance to the semi-finals. Neither did Otylia Jedrzejczak of Poland, the silver medalist in Athens, who finished four-hundredths of a second out of the 16th and last spot.
Elaine Breeden of the US moved on in sixth place, as did world champion Libby Trickett of Australia, who was 12th.
Larsen Jensen of the US advanced to the 400m freestyle final as the fastest qualifier in 3 minutes, 43.10 seconds.
China really had something to cheer and wave its red flags about when countryman Zhang Lin out-touched world champion Park Tae-hwan of South Korea to win his heat. Zhang was second overall in 3 minutes, 43.32 seconds.
Grant Hackett will try to give Australia their third consecutive victory in the 400m free, but he’ll have to make up time in the final after advancing in fifth place. Countryman Ian Thorpe won it in 2000 and 2004, but has since retired.
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