swimming : Crocker beats the unbeatable

Predictably, Michael Phelps did not slow down the day after setting two world records in less than an hour.

On Saturday night, he was back in the Palau Sant Jordi pool with his swim suit riding low and anticipation riding high, and when he stopped making waves in the 100 butterfly, he had improved on his world mark by 37/100ths of a second.

The only thing lacking was the gold medal, and that was because on an evening when Phelps met expectations, his countryman Ian Crocker did not.

Crocker, a pudgy-faced car aficionado from Maine who is fast developing a drawl now that he swims for the University of Texas, was the best American in the 100-meter butterfly before the phenomenal Phelps stormed into view. On Saturday, Crocker was the best again, holding off the 18-year-old Phelps by the length of an extended forearm and becoming the first man to descend under 51 seconds in the process.

"I guess a lot of people would say, 'I had full confidence in myself,"' Crocker said. "But deep down, you've got to say, 'Hey, it's Michael Phelps.' I mean my goal going in was to go as fast as I could and see where that would take me. I had faith it would take me far. I just didn't know how far."

It was a tremendous race. When it ended Crocker was still not quite ready to accept that he had finished in 50.98 seconds. Even though he has been staring at scoreboards for years, he couldn't believe he was reading this one correctly, thinking the record time and the numeral one next to it belonged to Phelps.

Who could fault his logic? Phelps had broken the 100 fly record in the semifinals on Friday with a time of 51.47 seconds: erasing Andrii Serdinov's five-minute-old mark. Phelps had also broken three other world marks here. But this race and record really were Crocker's, even if his previous best time was only 52.21 seconds.

"My goal for two years now has been to go 51, and I guess I still haven't made that goal," Crocker said, sounding anything but disappointed.

Phelps, who had never lost a 100 fly race in his short time swimming the event, was closer to crestfallen, but then, how dissatisfied can you be when you swim faster than ever and lose?

"Ian had a heck of a swim; you can't take anything away from that," said Phelps, who finished in 51.10. "And me losing it was in a good way, I think. The U.S. is 1-2 and we both broke the world record."

For a change at these record-strewn championships, nobody else joined in the fun Saturday. But there were still memorable performances. Aleksandr Popov, the 31-year-old Russian, won his third gold medal of the week and completed a sweep of the freestyle sprints by winning the 50 free. Popov is the only man to have swept the 50 and 100 at two Olympics, and though he had not won a major race in five years, he has managed to return to the top despite having to adapt to his new training base in Switzerland and its 25-meter pool.

As always, Popov's slow stroke rate is an elegant, thoughtful testimony to order in a sea of froth. While others thrash, Popov glides. He is now the oldest man to win the 50 or 100 at a world championships. Yet he was not the oldest medalist on the podium. Mark Foster, a 33-year-old Briton with streaks of gray in his hair, won the silver. Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands was third, meaning that one of the most prominent figures in the sport will leave Barcelona without a gold medal.

Van den Hoogenband finished second in the 100 and 200 free: the events he won at the last Olympics. Nonetheless, he could not stop smiling or congratulating Popov on Saturday.

"I really, really respect Alex," the Dutchman said. "When I was young, I watched him on TV. He was a great inspiration. It's a coincidence. If I wasn't there, he would have won for 15 years all the great competitions. Outside the pool, he's a nice person, too."

Hannah Stockbauer of Germany won her third individual gold by out-sprinting Diana Munz of the United States in the final lap of the 800 freestyle. Stockbauer also won the 400 and 1,500 free. Inge De Bruijn of the Netherlands, the dominant female swimmer at the last Olympics, put an end to a period of self-doubt by defending her world title in the 50 butterfly in 25.84 seconds.

De Bruijn did not take part in last year's European championships and is swimming a reduced schedule here: only the 50 fly and 50 free. She was not included in the Dutch relay teams because of coaches' dissatisfaction with her recent commitment to training, but she was still able to overpower the Swede Ana-Karin Kammerling, who deprived her of her world record last year.

Kammerling finished third. Jenny Thompson of the United States was second. Thompson was later was part of the American medley relay team that finished behind the Chinese, who became the second team in history to break four minutes. The Americans hold the world record of 3:58.30, but their best swimmer, Natalie Coughlin, diminished by a virus finished sixth in the opening backstroke leg. The Chinese capitalized to finish in 3:59.89: nearly a second better than the Americans.

Thompson, a 30-year-old medical student, had the consolation of winning her record 14th world medal: one more than the German Michael Gross and the Australian Ian Thorpe, who won five medals here but will not win another.

That is because Australia, one of the favorites in the medley relay, was disqualified from its heat Sunday morning because breaststroker Jim Piper started his second leg too early. Phelps and the Americans fared better, setting a championship record of 3:34.80 in their heat.

But because of Crocker's stunning victory in the 100 fly, he, not Phelps, was scheduled to swim in Sunday night's final. Phelps will still receive any medal the team wins, but even if Phelps, who will be the favorite in Sunday's 400 individual medley, finishes with four golds, that is still three short of what he has in heart and mind for next year's Olympics in Athens.

"It definitely makes me hungrier going into Athens," Phelps said. "I have a lot of goals for that meet, and I think the 100 fly is a big part of that for me."