Waves of Lightning

“Citius, Altius, Fortius”.  These three Latin words represent the most basic ideals on which the modern Olympic Games were founded upon.  And for the current Games, the first word, which simply translates to “faster”, is quickly establishing itself as the adjective most often used to describe the highlights we’ve seen thus far.  Michael Phelps, in one of the most anticipated swims in the history of the Games, made sure that the Beijing Olympics will be memorable for his golden performances more than any other controversy on and off the field.  On the other hand, Usain Bolt, while not as much of a household name yet, deserves special mention for his record-breaking and jaw-dropping exploits on the track.

Where do we start with Michael Phelps?  What about the enormous pressure and anticipation of breaking Mark Spitz’s 36 year old record of seven gold medals in a single Olympics, and actually accomplishing it in every way imaginable.  So often have expectations been fostered upon those with potential and equally often has disappointment been the end result, that what he has accomplished is all the more remarkable.  You have to remember that the Olympics happen just once every four years, so the window of opportunity to break such a record would probably lie within the three or four Games when an athlete is still at his/her prime, and 12-16 years is already an unbelievably long time to be at the top of your game in the physical field of sports.  That doesn’t even account for the emergence of younger and stronger rivals, never mind your contemporaries.  We might never ever witness his freshly set record of eight medals being broken in our lifetimes (or until the next Games in London, where Phelps claims he will try to add a couple of more strokes into his list of events).

It’s not just that he won all eight events that he entered in, but he won in both dominant and dramatic fashion.  While almost all of his wins broke world records, two of them, particularly the 400-meter freestyle relay (0.08 seconds over the French team via an assist from teammate Jason Lezak) and the 100-meter butterfly (0.01 seconds over Croatian almost-giant-killer Milorad Cavic) were thrilling victories snatched from the jaws of defeat.  In some way, these two near-misses further underscore the razon-thin line between plain greatness and undeniable immortality.  It’s almost completely overshadowed the fact that, at age 23, he’s also the owner of the most number of Olympic gold medals in history (14), five more than his closest pursuers.

Moving from water onto dry land, we find another athlete doing his best Michael Phelps impersonation off the pool.  Usain Bolt, whose first name might as well be lightning, just achieved a rare double sweep of the mens 100 and 200 meter sprint races, and he did it by doing what no one else has ever done before:  he set world records in both events in the same Olympics.  The Jamaican sensation just finished running the 200 meter finals a couple of hours ago and in a dominant display of speed, won by half-a-second (0.52) over the next closest finisher, who, by the way, got disqualified soon thereafter.  He could probably have jogged to the finish line, like what he did during the 100, and still won.  His record-breaking 19.30 also surpassed the 12-year-old-mark of American Michael Johnson by 0.02 seconds.

His performance in the 100 meters was almost as remarkable, with a record time of 9.69.  Despite having one shoe untied and his shirt untucked, he managed to win the race easily, being able to raise his palms up to play to the crowd before the race was finished.  His competitors and coaches also said he could have gone faster and lowered the record even more if he didn’t ease up.  If that’s not an acceptance of “we’re just here for second place”, then I don’t know what is.

How rare was the double he achieved?  Only six other men have done it in history, the last being 24 years ago by Carl Lewis.  Bolt is not even old enough to have watched that one live, just turning 22 today.  This could be bad news to the peers of the current “fastest man alive” for years to come.

Though there still are three more days of competition and countless medals to be awarded, we pretty much have an idea who’ll instantly be remembered from these Games for years to come.