Phelps’ quest became overshadowed by jealousy, odd agendas

ATHENS, Greece — Despite repeated attempts, Mark Spitz was unavailable for comment.

Chances are, he was off drinking champagne with the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

So, before you could say Pieter van den Hoogenband, the NBC minidrama was over. "American Idol," the chlorinated version, no longer holds water. The great Michael Phelps has been conquered before he had a chance to actually be great.

"It was tough racing the two greatest freestylers of all time," Phelps said Monday. "(But) it was fun. I had fun out there and did what I wanted to do."

For this, Phelps should be applauded. The kid was ambitious enough to take aim at Spitz's legendary record, the seven gold medals Spitz won in 1972. Phelps was precocious enough to swim with the sharks in the 200-meter freestyle, an event reclaimed by the great Ian Thorpe, the biggest thing to hit Australia since Nicole Kidman and AC/DC.

Phelps may tune out the world with his iPod, burying himself in his deep catalog of rap music. But he is no slacker. We should all have his ambition.

"He had an incredible swim," U.S. teammate Lenny Krayzelburg said. "He dropped sixth-tenths off his best time. It's just that two other guys were better."

Still, there is no shortage of shame in this story, a trumped-up adventure that became clouded by jealousy, resentment, magazine covers and strange agendas.

Thorpe sauntered out of the pool like a rock star, beaming with validation, but it wasn't that long ago that he came off as a classic killjoy. He called Phelps' quest "impossible." It may have been a cold-blooded mind game. It may have been the truth.

Yet to scold Phelps for trying to "achieve someone else's achievement" was surely a product of envy and sounded very much like a man yearning for the worldwide attention Phelps started to garner.

Once in the winner's circle, Thorpe was much more gracious. Yes, he still thought Phelps' quest was impossible, something he would never try himself due to the grueling schedule involved. Yet he also claimed to have a certain fascination with the entire matter.

"I would have loved to have seen Michael, to have seen anyone achieve that," Thorpe said. "It's just not something I've set as a goal."

While Thorpe loomed as Phelps' biggest obstacle, the most significant damage to the quest may have come from within Team USA, centering on a bizarre decision made by coach Eddie Reese.

In a Sunday relay, Reese awarded a spot in the finals to Ian Crocker, who was said to be suffering from the effects of a cold. In the process, he bypassed Gary Hall Jr., the Phoenix native who anchored three gold medal-winning relay teams in the previous two Olympics.

Was Reese showing favoritism to an athlete he coaches at the University of Texas? Was he laying it to Hall, a free-spirited, nonconforming sort who has again fallen out of favor and never quite fit within the team bureaucracy? No one is saying, although there are a lot of whispers, and the matter has become highly flammable.

Of course, it didn't help that Hall had questioned Phelps' credentials for the relay. Or that Hall's agent, David Arluck, sided with Thorpe's assessment of the matter.

"Gary is one of the best Olympians of all time," Arluck told the Associated Press. "I can't believe they kept him off the relay for some 19-year-old guy who is going after something that he's not going to accomplish anyway."

Still, it wasn't a decision between Hall and Phelps. The decision was between Hall and Crocker, and here, Reese made a reckless choice. In the first 100 meters, Crocker clocked the worst time in the field, handing Team USA a deficit it could not handle. Hall had swum in the preliminaries that morning, although he's a notoriously better night swimmer.

The tension and contention was so thick that Hall went AWOL at Sunday's meet. Meanwhile, Reese tried to pawn the whole matter on a swimsuit company that offered Phelps a $1million incentive if he pulled off the Spitz blitz.

"The seven gold medal quest — I don't believe it's his quest," Reese said. "If it happens, it happens, but Speedo made that offer of $1million. I honestly don't think it has been on his mind. I know Michael is in it for the right reasons, and if he wasn't, he wouldn't have entered the 200 free. He wanted to race the 200 free because he wanted to race Ian Thorpe before his time is up."

Still, had Reese been a bit more prudent, it's possible Phelps would still have a chance to at least tie Spitz's record, something Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman, acknowledged after Monday's loss to Thorpe.

"If the relay had gone differently, I might be saying something different," Bowman said. "But it's definitely difficult. Spitz's record definitely deserves its respect."

Yes, and it will remain intact, seemingly as safe as the Dolphins' 17-0 record achieved that same year. Reese can only hope that he hasn't fractured his own team beyond repair.

If there's a bright spot, Thorpe said he's looking forward to a rematch with Phelps and van den Hoogenband at the 2008 Games in Beijing. Until then, NBC will hope to find a transcendent athlete somewhere here in Athens.

After all, there is no superstar gymnast on the menu. There is no boxer or track star capturing the imagination. And much to the network's chagrin, naked fencing is simply out of the question.