考研阅读精选：泳池中潜藏的竞争
Swimming’s dormant rivalryNo big splash
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INDIVIDUAL sports thrive on great rivalries. Think of Bjorn Borg andJohn McEnroe in tennis, Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett in athletics orMuhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in boxing. Having never gripped the publicimagination like those other sports, swimming has not been helped by itslack of similar match-ups. So when news broke in February thatAustralia’s Ian Thorpe (pictured, left) was planning a comeback atLondon 2012, where he might compete against Michael Phelps (right) ofthe United States, it seemed to promise a contest between two titans ofthe pool. Sadly, it is starting to look as if the Phelps-Thorpe rivalrywill make little splash at next year’s Olympics.
This is not todiminish the sportsmen themselves, both of whom rank among swimming’sall-time greats. Mr. Thorpe is Australia’s top swimmer, having won fiveOlympic gold medals (three in 2000 and two four years later). MichaelPhelps is one of the most successful Olympians ever, collecting a recordeight gold medals in Beijing three years ago to add to the six he wonin 2004. When the two swam against each other in the 200m (656 feet)freestyle at Athens 2004, the media billed the event as “the race of thecentury”. Mr. Thorpe won, while Mr. Phelps could only manage bronze onthat occasion. But a great rivalry seemed to be in the making.
Unfortunately, Mr. Thorpe retired in 2006, at the age of just 24, beforethat rivalry had any chance to develop. Whether illness, mental burnoutor something else was to blame for this decision, he has now spent somany years out of the pool that he will struggle to make the grade forthe 2012 London Olympics. It is not just the duration of his absencethat counts against him, as he will be nearly 30 next summer. While thatis only two or three years older than some of his closest competitors,it is a relatively advanced age for a comeback, especially as Mr. Thorpestarted so young (he was first selected for Australia’s national teamwhen he was 14). Moreover, since swimming is a straight race lacking thestrategic and tactical elements of other sports, older swimmers cannoteasily make up in experience for what they have lost in fitness.
The Australian’s recent results are not encouraging. Earlier this monthat the Tokyo World Cup, he failed to make the final of the 100mfreestyle and came 26th in the heats of the 100m butterfly. On a morepositive note, he swam much faster than in Beijing only a few daysearlier. But he is still well off the pace set by race leaders, withjust four months to go before he must attempt to qualify for London.
In the meantime, Mr. Phelps’s achievements must look daunting. In the200m freestyle, the event both swimmers are most likely to contest, Mr.Phelps set a new world record of one minute, 43.86 seconds in 2007,beating Mr. Thorpe’s previous record of one minute, 44.06 seconds set in2001. Indeed, despite collecting gold medals in this event at all themajor competitions between 2001 and 2004, Mr. Thorpe has never swumfaster than in 2001. In 2008, Mr. Phelps went even better, setting aworld record of one minute, 42.96 seconds, although he did so wearing aperformance-enhancing polyurethane suit that was subsequently banned(but only after Germany’s Paul Biedermann had broken this record in 2009with a time of one minute, 42.00 seconds, using an even more advancedbodysuit).
Mr. Phelps’s own preparations for London now seem tobe going well, following a sequence of losses after Beijing, while thecontroversy over swimsuits was raging. But his best results are comingin butterfly, while Mr. Thorpe’s favorite event is freestyle. Althoughboth men could enter the water at the same time for the 200m freestyle,that race is currently being dominated by Ryan Lochte, a virtualunderstudy to Mr. Phelps in Beijing who beat the Olympic winner in thisyear’s World Aquatics Championships, taking gold with a time of oneminute, 44.44 seconds.
Mr. Thorpe cannot be written off entirely.Even with an advanced polyurethane suit, Mr. Biedermann could shaveonly a hundredth of a second off Mr. Thorpe’s fastest time for the 400mfreestyle of three minutes, 40.08 seconds, recorded six years beforepolyurethane suits first appeared. With all swimmers garbed in ordinarytextiles for London, Mr. Thorpe could enjoy success if he can hit thelevels he reached a decade earlier. But he has ruled himself out of the400m event, which was previously his best, saying he does not haveenough time to prepare for the longer distance. As he focuses onqualifying for the shorter races, the clock is ticking.
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