Record in spitz-ing distance
Michael Phelps came up for air yesterday, swimming just the 200m individual medley semi-finals and 100m butterfly heats as he prepared for the final stages of his race towards Olympic history.
"I can't complain not having a final," said Phelps. "It was a bit more relaxing."
Phelps won two golds on Wednesday, in the 200m butterfly and 4x200m freestyle relay, taking his tally in Beijing to five.
With his six golds from Athens he now owns the most golds of any Olympian in any sport.
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.
Well into a schedule that includes 17 swims in nine days, Phelps was doing all he could to conserve energy.
"I just wanted to win my heat," he said after the medley semi-finals, and he did in 1min 57.70. That put him second-quickest heading into the final behind the 1:57.69 of teammate Ryan Lochte.
"I guess it's going to be me and Ryan in the middle today," said Phelps, who has the world record in the event of 1:54.80 but has Lochte hot in pursuit. "Today is going to be the real battle."
Phelps took a similarly relaxed approach in the 100m fly heats.
"I didn't have much trouble after the first 50m," he said after notching the second-fastest time of the night. "I came home pretty good, I seemed to put myself out in the first 50m.
"It's the prelims, nothing really counts until the finals."
Meanwhile, Grant Hackett sets out today to create more Olympic history as the first male swimmer to win three consecutive titles in the gruelling 1500 metres freestyle.
The 28-year-old Australian, who has six career Olympic medals, three of them gold, has been under pressure in the lead-up to his Beijing campaign after a poor world championships by his standards in Melbourne in March 2007.
Poland's Mateusz Sawrymowicz ended Hackett's four-title domination of the 1500m with victory last year and the Australian also lost his 400 free world crown.
"I think I'm swimming faster than I was in Sydney and Athens and I've just got to get up and do it," said Hackett.
"To win I'm going to need to swim faster because the standard and the depth of the other swimmers has picked up a lot.
"I can't control how fast others can swim, but I can control how I go and I've done that to the best of my abilities. Physically, I feel like I've done everything."
US swimmer Dara Torres is the sentimental favourite to win the women's 50m freestyle. She is finding a whole new set of fans as she tackles her fifth Olympics at the unlikely age of 41.
"I just want to go out there for those 40-something girls and show that age is just a number," said Torres, who won the first of her nine Olympic medals in Los Angeles way back in 1984.