Phelps turns in unprecedented performance at worlds

	Michael Phelps has started his worlds with three golds in three events and two world records in consecutive days. Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
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MELBOURNE, Australia -- Remember the historic performance Michael Phelps had at the 2004 Olympics? Eight medals, including six gold? Comparisons to Mark Spitz? Well, why stop there? Phelps is making his own standards seem mortal at the FINA World Championships, where he is on the verge of the greatest single-meet performance in swimming history. Granted, Phelps has completed only three events so far, but it's the way he has owned the pool in those events that is rendering comparisons with anyone other than himself pointless.

Consider what he has done so far. On Sunday night, Phelps swam the leadoff leg for the U.S. 4x100-meter relay team (with Neil Walker, Cullen Jones and Jason Lezak) that won the gold medal. The 100 free isn't one of Phelps' better events -- he didn't swim it at the Olympics and isn't swimming it here -- but he gave the U.S. team a lead it never lost and the team's winning time (3:12.72) was the second-fastest in history, after the 3:12.46 swum by the exact same quartet in Victoria, British Columbia, last summer.

On Tuesday night, he broke Ian Thorpe's world record in the 200-meter freestyle that had stood since 2001, lowering the mark from 1:44.06 to 1:43.86. Phelps had placed third in the event, behind Thorpe and Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands, at the Athens Games. In other words, this wasn't Phelps' best event, either. Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman, has described Thorpe's freestyle technique and performances in the pool as "perfect," and he admitted to being surprised that Phelps could beat this particular record.

Then on Wednesday, Phelps blitzed his own world record in the 200-meter butterfly by an astounding 1.62 seconds, lowering the mark to 1:52.09. Even though Phelps already owned the seven fastest times in history, none of those races compared to this one.

The magnitude of Phelps' feat could be seen best on the overhead video screen at Rod Laver Arena, where a moving red line, signifying world-record pace in each race, was superimposed across the screen. In most races, the lead swimmer would be chasing the line to the finish wall. By the time Phelps turned at the second (100-meter) wall, his entire body was ahead of the line. He stayed that way right to the finish.

His butterfly technique is so smooth now that there is noticeably less splash at the end of the race in his lane than in other lanes and he seems to be going slower than the other swimmers. "No way it could be that fast," he said afterwards. At a stage when elite swimmers are glad to lower their best times by hundredths of seconds, Phelps said he couldn't recall setting a PR in any race by more than a second since he was 12.