Michael Phelps entered the 2004 Olympics intent on breaking American swimming phenomenon Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in one Olympics. He got off to a fast start, setting a world record in his first race, the 400-meter individual medley, and Olympic records with victories in the 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter butterfly and 400-meter individual medley. Phelps then settled for third place in the 200-meter freestyle and the 4x100-meter freestyle medley. He entered the final day of the swimming competition with five gold and two bronze medals. Although this put him short of Spitz’s record seven golds, he had already tied Spitz’s record of four individual golds in one Olympics.
Phelps sat out the finals of the 4x100-meter medley so that his teammate Ian Crocker could leave Athens with a gold medal. The veteran U.S. swimmer Crocker had failed to qualify in the 100-meter freestyle and had swum poorly in the 4x100-meter freestyle final in which the U.S. won the bronze. Crocker then lost the 100-meter butterfly by .04 seconds to Phelps, who qualified for the 4x100 medley team with his win. Phelps swam the butterfly leg of the race in the preliminaries but then ceded his spot in the final to Crocker.
Aaron Piersol, the first of the U.S. relay team into the water, swam an impressive 53.45-second backstroke leg. Next up was Brendan Hansen in the breaststroke, then Crocker, who rewarded Phelps’ faith in him by swimming the second-fastest butterfly leg in relay history. A strong finish in the freestyle leg by Jason Lezak gave the U.S. the gold and a world record time of 3:30.68, which knocked a full three seconds off the former mark.
