BEIJING, Aug 14: Michael Phelps’s Olympic Games gold medal parade took a Beijing breather on Thursday leaving the United States team to survive on scraps.
Phelps, with five golds and five world records to his name already here, confined his efforts to the 200m individual medley semi-final and the 100m butterfly heats.
But as the 23-year-old moved temporarily into the shadows, the US squad’s mood darkened, along with the weather, with just one silver and three bronze.
“I just wanted to win my [200m] heat,” said Phelps, who did so in 1min 57.70, second-quickest heading into the final behind the 1:57.69 of team-mate Ryan Lochte.
“I guess it’s going to be me and Ryan in the middle tomorrow [Friday],”said Phelps, who owns the world record in the event of 1:54.80. “It’s all I wanted to do. Tomorrow is going to be the real battle.”
Phelps won six golds in Athens in 2004 and has already been confirmed as the greatest Olympian of all time.
If he can win the 200m medley and the 100m butterfly, and help the United States to victory in the 4x100m medley relay, Phelps will break US swimmer Mark Spitz’s 36-year-old record of seven golds at one Games.
In Thursday’s four swimming finals, the best peformances by the US came in the women’s 4x200m freestyle where they captured bronze and Jason Lezak who was third in the men’s 100m freestyle.
A third place also went to Adam Wheeler in Greco-Roman wrestling.
Kim Rhode had the best performance in Thursday’s early action taking a silver in the skeet event of women’s shooting which was held in pouring rain.
By the midway point of the day, the US still had 10 golds in their medal haul of 33 with China boasting 22, also out of a total of 34.
The American baseball team beat the Dutch 7-0 but in controversial circumstances with the match stopped by rain in the final inning where the Netherlands team had the bases loaded and no outs.
“I think the USA deserved to win but it was a strange way to end it,” Dutch manager Robert Eenhoorn said.
US manager Davey Johnson could understand the Dutch dilemma.
“When you are down 7-zip, your chances of scoring against my pitching staff are not very good,” Johnson said.—AFP