Michael Phelps: Overview of his performance at the 2011 World Championships – Part 7
After a sluggish swim in the preliminary rounds of the 200m IM, everyone started to pounce upon Phelps’s shoulder and doubted his credibility to be one of the top contenders for the podium finish. There was a lot much pressure on every participant of the
IM event, as they were going to compete with the likes of Phelps and Lochte in the semi-finals.
Finally, the time came and all the swimmers of heat one were escorted towards the starting blocks. Markus Rogan earned the fourth lane of the first heat, while Lochte and Phelps secured the fifth and sixth lanes, based on their timings in the prelims.
Lochte displayed fantastic swimming skills in the four-lap discipline, as he defeated Phelps on the finishing wall with a timing of 1 minute and 56.74 seconds. With his splendid effort, Lochte remained 0.52 seconds faster than Phelps in the IM event, as
Phelps clocked a time of 1 minute and 57.26 seconds. Both American swimmers demonstrated their exhausting efforts throughout the event, but Lochte asserted his dominance on the Olympic champion in every lap of the race.
He completed his butterfly swim in a time of 24.90 seconds and stayed 0.25 seconds faster than Phelps, who submitted a second fastest time of 25.15 seconds. In the next lap, Lochte’s strong back-stroke legs enabled him to sprint his second lap in 29.19 seconds,
to post 54.09 seconds as compared to Phelps’s 54.68 seconds effort.
Similarly, in the third lap, Lochte, with his comparatively slower breast-stroke kicks ended his swim in 34.45 seconds and appeared on the wall with a timing of 1 minute and 28.54 seconds.
Conversely, despite of his faster breast-stroke kicks, Phelps was only able to narrow the lead, as he appeared on the finishing wall with a timing of 1 minute and 28.63 seconds. Everything was now dependant on the freestyle lap, where Lochte presented a
fastest time of 28.20 seconds to report 1 minute and 56.74 seconds on the board for the fastest qualifying seat. The pair of American swimmers were followed by Hungarian swimmer, Laszlo Cseh, who acquired third fastest spot in a time of 1 minute and 57.74
seconds.
The semi-final of the event was full of surprises, as the strongest competitors of the event presented terrific swims in the semi-final and their astonishing efforts delivered a very clear message to the aquatic arena that there is more to come in the final
round.
On the next day in the final of the 200m IM, Lochte showered his expertise to overwhelm the effort of his strongest rival, Phelps, and defend the title of his main event. Lochte not only captured the gold medal of IM swim, but he also posted a time 0.10
seconds under his own world mark of 1 minute and 54.10 seconds. His effort improved the world record to 1 minute and 54.00 seconds.
The event was the toughest meet of the championship so far, as he was engaged in a neck-to-neck battle with Phelps throughout the 200m event and was only able to gain a slight lead over him by touching the wall first.
In addition, Lochte expressed gratification after his remarkable victory over Phelps, while the arena applauded for his invincible effort in the respective meet.
Continued in Part 8
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