AAP General News (Australia)
08-17-2004
Swm: Thorpe beats van den Hoogenband and Phelps in 200m free=2
Thorpe and van den Hoogenband embraced after the race, the Dutchman telling the Australian
superstar: "Now, we're even".
His victory drowns any chance Phelps had of equalling Mark Spitz's record tally of
seven gold medals at the one Games.
The 19-year-old Phelps has one gold medal in the bag after setting a new world 400m
individual medley time on Saturday.
But he can only win a maximum six gold after his loss tonight.
Spitz watched the race live from a VIP area at the Olympic pool, his record intact
for at least another four years.
Thorpe becomes the third male swimmer in history to win the 200m and 400m double at
one Games behind Russian Evgueni Sadovyi in Barcelona in 1992 and New Zealander Danyon
Loader at the '96 Atlanta Games.
If he wins the 100m freestyle later this week, he'll become the first swimmer to win
the 100m, 200m and 400m freestyle treble at an Olympics.
While Thorpe dedicated his 400m freestyle triumph at the weekend to his friend Craig
Stevens and coach Tracey Menzies, today's victory was for himself.
His Australian team-mates gave the crowd at the pool an impromptu performance of Waltzing
Matilda to celebrate the swimming king's win.
Olympic 1500m champion Grant Hackett was fifth in 1:46.56 - about a second adrift of his best.
Thorpe's performance bettered van den Hoogenband's four-year-old Olympic record by 0.64s.
His time was more than half a second outside his world record (1:44.06) at the 2001
Fukuoka world championships but the strong Athens' winds meant the athletes had to swim
through turbulence in the open-air facility.
AAP jhm/sm/tw/nh
KEYWORD: OLY SWM THORPE 2 ATHENS
2004 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.
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