He was anointed The Face of this year’s Summer Olympics long before they opened, and on the world’s biggest stage, Michael Phelps lived up to the hyperbole that accompanied him to Athens.
He treated pressure as if it were his personal plaything, regarded each race as casually as a Sunday outing and handled the demands put on him with an easy grace.
When he was finished, Phelps had six gold medals, two bronzes and the respect and admiration of those who watched him through his eight days at the pool.
The nine non-Phelps days of competition at the birthplace of sport produced an angry gymnastics controversy, an angst-ridden U.S. performance in men’s basketball, a dominant run on the softball diamond and an inspiring swan song by the grand dames of soccer.
It was Olympic business as usual, for better or worse, with a potential drug scandal looming ominously in the background.
Before these Games, the U.S. Olympic Committee had proclaimed 100 medals as its goal, and it reached that figure Saturday when the men’s basketball team salvaged a measure of pride by beating Lithuania for the bronze medal.
And with boxer Andre Ward sure to win either gold or silver on Sunday, the U.S. will at least match the 101 medals won in Atlanta in 1996 despite no contribution from track star Marion Jones.
Jones, the Michael Phelps of Sydney with a five-medal haul in 2000, was shut out this time. She finished fifth in the long jump, then missed a baton pass in the star-crossed 400-meter relay as the heavily favored U.S. team was disqualified.
Third-place medal aside, the U.S. men’s basketball team was hardly a worthy successor to its Dream Team forebears. An eight-point loss to Argentina in Friday’s semifinals was its third of the tournament, one more loss than it had suffered in 111 previous games since basketball became an Olympic sport in 1936.
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The U.S. women fared considerably better. They claimed their third straight gold medal and completed an undefeated run through the tournament by beating Australia in Saturday’s championship game.
But with war raging, tight security everywhere and the world a generally uneasy place, the medal count was far from the USOC’s only concern.
The U.S. softball team prevailed while dealing with emotional trauma. Sue Candera, the 49-year-old wife of head coach Mike Candera, died of complications from a brain aneurysm she suffered while traveling with the team on its pre-Olympic tour.
Eight days after his wife’s death, Candera decided to coach in Athens, her memory as fresh as an open wound.
“As much as emotions can fly, when the bell rings they’re channeled, they kind of come to a halt,” catcher Stacey Nuveman said.
Their gold medal assured with a 5-1 victory over Australia, the U.S. players finally released their emotions, piling atop one another in front of the pitcher’s mound.
Candera didn’t join them. He stood alone, off to the side, playing with his wedding ring.
“I wanted to play the best softball I could for him because I knew how important it was for him and his wife to win the gold medal,” pitcher Lisa Fernandez said. “He never allowed his emotions to show, but knowing the pain he was going through, we wanted to maintain the focus that our country comes first.”
The softball team contributed to another strong showing by American women. Natalie Coughlin trailed only Phelps in the medal haul, taking home five as the catalyst for the U.S. women’s swim team.
There were also notable feats at the track, where the U.S. men swept the 200 and 400 meters and went 1-2 in the long jump.
But Gail Devers crashed in a heat of the 100-meter hurdles, Allen Johnson crashed in a quarterfinal of the 110-meter hurdles, Alan Webb burned out in a heat of the 1,500 meters and world champion Tom Pappas limped out of the decathlon with an injured foot.
The women’s soccer team, many of its veterans ready to get on with their lives, had a grand, last, gold-medal stand. But tennis stars Andy Roddick and Venus Williams, lucrative other lives in place, made only token appearances before rushing back to them.
The men’s and women’s gymnastics teams won silver medals in the all-around, and Paul Hamm and Carly Patterson won individual golds in all-around.
But then came the South Korean protest and the controversy over scoring, and Hamm, whose comeback win was the stuff of legend, fled Athens early and feeling abandoned.
“I felt really horrible that no one was defending me, not USA Gymnastics, not the FIG who caused the whole mess, nobody,” Hamm lamented even before the international federation (FIG) had asked him to return his medal.
“I don’t feel that my medal is tainted, but I guess I have to explain that myself because USA Gymnastics let me down.”
Severely toned down were the U.S. celebrations at the track, where the athletes heeded the lectures they heard before coming to Athens. They smiled and took their victory laps and waved their flags, but there was no preening or posturing or provocative acts that would incite the crowd.
They were careful, almost too careful, it sometimes seemed. Decathlete Bryan Clay, who grew up in Hawaii, thought of waving that state’s flag after winning his silver medal.
“But I didn’t know if it was appropriate for the Olympic Games,” he said. So he didn’t.
Bernard Williams simply walked off the track after finishing second to teammate Shawn Crawford in the 200 meters.
“I was excited, but we got lectured a lot about etiquette if you win a medal,” he said. “At first I was looking for my flag to wave, but then I thought, `What if you’re not supposed to carry your flag when you finish second?’ Then I wasn’t sure if I could run around the track. You don’t want to get captured on TV from a bad perspective.”
That’s what happened to Williams in Australia, where he and fellow members of his 400-meter relay flexed their muscles, flaunted their medals and wore their flags like a toga. They were roundly criticized.
“He’s been thinking about that for four years,” said Williams’ coach, Mike Holloway. “I don’t think anyone knew how bad he felt.”
After Williams finished second in a U.S. sweep of the 200 meters, he took a most decorous victory lap with winner Crawford and bronze medalist Justin Gatlin.
“I had my fun in 2000 and made a lot of people angry,” Williams said. “It’s not fun when you have fun and you’re making people angry. So I had to get a medal to get a victory lap here, to get a second chance to do it the right way. We knew we had to be on our best behavior.”
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Williams was born in Baltimore, which made his admission, and his reformed behavior, more appropriate. That’s also the hometown of Phelps, who distinguished himself most notably in a race he didn’t swim.
After qualifying for the butterfly leg of the 400 medley relay, Phelps relinquished his spot to Ian Crocker so his teammate could experience the thrill of swimming for a medal. The relay team won gold–and set a world record.
Michael Phelps set the standard for them all.