Michael Phelps is trying to break a record set by Mark Spitz. Al Bello/Getty Images

The run-up to these Olympics has surely been the most curious -- and indisputably the most negative -- ever.

As a result of all the mess and scandal, as nearly as I can tell, the Games of the 28th Olympiad are being held with only one athlete participating -- the amazing 18-year-old swimmer from Baltimore, Michael Phelps. What in the world is NBC going to put on the air when young Mr. Phelps isn't in the pool? Are there secret plans afoot to have him wrestle, fence and play beach volleyball, as well?

No swimmer has ever been accorded anything approaching this attention before an Olympics. Phelps has even far exceeded the spotlight that was shown on Carl Lewis before the 1984 Games in Los Angeles -- and that at a time when the Soviet Union was boycotting and athletic jingoism reached a fever pitch here in the Republic.

Unlike other large sports events, where the fans are only too familiar with the competitors, even the most popular Olympic sports -- track and field, swimming, gymnastics -- receive little attention the other 206 weeks of every Olympiad, so heroes must be sculpted overnight. Until Phelps started appearing in commercials and on every magazine cover this side of Architectural Digest, who even knew what he looked like ... let alone who he was and what he did.

But circumstances have conspired to require that somebody become the great bright hype. First of all, nothing but bad news has emerged from Athens. Would the city even finish Olympic preparations? Will the subways be completed? Will the phones work? Will the heat and pollution overwhelm spectators and participants alike?

Tickets sales have been dreadful. American corporations that normally entertain their best customers at the Olympics are having trouble even finding people who want to go for free. And, of course, over all hangs the specter of some kind of terrorist horror.

More parochially, the marquee sport -- track and field -- has suffered a nasty succession of drug busts. Anyway, no single compelling track figure has emerged. Team sports always play second fiddle in the Olympics, and our most likely candidate for stardom in this regard -- those dozen players the NBA could scare up to put on USA uniforms -- were hardly any bona fide Dream Team even before they demonstrated that they didn't have the foggiest idea how to contend with a simple zone defense.

So Phelps is the designated cynosure. He is an engaging enough kid, unsullied, who seems to be the finest biped to enter Greek waters since Poseidon. Of course, to hear other swimmers rave, Phelps is a freak, a regular merman, with huge hands and feet, a long torso and short legs. He also possesses the added PR advantage of going after a glamorous record.

Most Americans could only name three swimmers in the 20th century -- Johnny Weissmuller, Esther Williams and Mark Spitz -- and, really, nowadays only Spitz is remembered by anyone not on Medicare. That Phelps is trying to break Spitz's record of seven gold medals gives him instant recognition by association.

Actually, five golds is a more realistic target, but, aha, one of these, the 400-meter individual medley, will be contested this Saturday in prime time, the first full day of events, so lucky old NBC can start beating the drums for Phelps almost as soon as the Olympic torch is lit ... by, I assume, that famous Greek, Michael Phelpsanopolos.

Sports Illustrated senior contributing writer Frank Deford is a regular contributor to SI.com and appears each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. He is a longtime correspondent for HBO's Real Sports and his new novel, An American Summer (Sourcebooks Trade), is available at bookstores everywhere.