Killion: For Phelps, it's rise and shine

Killion: For Phelps, it's rise and shine

off his own world record with a time of 4 minutes, 3.84 seconds. "Going into the ready room, I started getting these kind of chills up and down my body."

That's good to know. It's encouraging that Phelps is capable of chills, goose bumps and tears. Because the athlete being packaged as the man who is reinventing the sport of swimming sometimes doesn't seem quite human. He seems more a perfectly constructed aquatics machine: huge wingspan, feet like flippers, churning methodically through the water.

Four years ago, Phelps seemed more vulnerable, even a little overwhelmed, by his quest for seven gold medals (he ended up with six). This time, he seems much more ready for the challenge.

NBC paid $894 million for these Olympics, and Phelps is the star of the show. Why? He's the most dominant athlete in his sport. He's trying to surpass an American icon — Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals in 1972. Everyone loves a sequel, and NBC started this story in 2004 in Athens. Plus, Phelps competes in a sport that hasn't been seriously tainted by doping, like track has.

All of that makes Phelps the American face of these Olympics. NBC even managed to flip swimming's normal schedule upside down so that Phelps' quest would be live in prime time in the United States. Which is why the uber-modern Water Cube was packed by 8 a.m.

The inside-out schedule is confusing. Both Phelps and U.S. teammate Ryan Lochte, who won the bronze medal, referred
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to the race "tonight." But it gave NBC a grand kickoff to their first night of live competition.

Phelps does not like swimming the 400 IM. He has told his coach, Bob Bowman, that Beijing would be his last race in the event, and he reminded Bowman of that during Sunday morning's warm-up. Bowman told him he had to go out with a world record. Phelps said all he needed was 4:05.24 — one one-hundredth of a second off his own world record.

He went much lower. Phelps led from the start in the butterfly, though Hungarian Laszlo Cseh hung with him. In the backstroke, Lochte pulled even, and then briefly led. That was exciting since the next stroke — breaststroke — is supposed to be Phelps' weakness. But Lochte conceded that the backstroke effort took too much out of him. Phelps pulled ahead, and then he left Lochte in his wake on the freestyle finish.

"I wasn't comfortable after the first 200 with everybody so close together," Phelps said. "That's not usually how it is. It made my breaststroke a lot stronger.

"And the freestyle is all adrenaline."

After the race, Phelps raised his arms. He waved to President Bush, who was in the stands with a phalanx of American and Chinese security. The Chinese fans cheered.

The quest for eight is easily translatable to Chinese: 8 is considered the luckiest number, the reason these Games are being held in August. Eight means a great fortune in the near future.

Phelps may have no more 400 IMs in his future. But certainly a fortune in gold medals.