10 Years On: Looking Back at Michael Phelps’ Performance at the 2007 World Championships

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

By Andy Ross.

On April 1, 2007, Michael Phelps won his seventh gold medal of the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia in the 400 IM. A little over ten years later, Phelps is unanimously known as the greatest swimmer of all time. Almost everyone involved in the swimming community remembers Phelps’ peak at the 2008 Olympics when he won eight gold medals in Beijing, but it was the 2007 World Championships that really was Phelps’ rise to dominance.

Phelps first attempted his monster program at the 2003 World Championships in Barcelona, Spain, where he competed in six events. He broke five world records at the meet, in the 200 fly, 200 IM (twice), 100 fly and 400 IM. Phelps went on to pick up two more events for the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, in an attempt to outdo Mark Spitz’s seven-gold-medal performance at the 1972 Olympics. The then 19-year-old Phelps won eight medals but picked up only bronze in the 200 free and 400 free relay, missing an opportunity to surpass or equal Spitz. Even though Phelps had set all those world records and won all those medals, there was still debate over if he was better than Australian Ian Thorpe. Phelps had soundly beaten Thorpe in the 200 IM at the 2003 World Champs in Phelps’ prime event, while Thorpe beat Phelps in his prime event, the 200 free at the 2004 Olympics.

Thorpe had disappeared from the swimming scene after the 2004 Olympics, where he was aiming to return to competition in time for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. If Phelps was going to prove he was the number one swimmer in the world, he was going to have to have a big 2005. But Phelps dropped the 400 IM and 200 fly from his program, picking up the 100 and 400 free. He did not medal in the 100, placing seventh, and he did not even final in the 400, placing 18th. He won the 200 free and 200 IM, and finished second in the 100 fly, behind teammate Ian Crocker. It is safe to say 2005 was an underwhelming year for Phelps, with no world records being set and only two individual gold medals at the World Championships (200 free, 200 IM). Grant Hackett took home the Swimming World World Swimmer of the Year honors that year.

Phelps returned in 2006 with World Records in the 200 fly and 200 IM at the Pan Pacific Championships and was back on track to being the #1 world swimmer. Thorpe had to sit out of the Commonwealth Games due to illness, and subsequently retired from swimming in November 2006, leaving Phelps as the world’s unanimous number one swimmer. Phelps decided to drop the 100 and 400 free from his regular lineup, as he picked back up the 200 fly and 400 IM. If Phelps was going to be able to win eight golds in Beijing, he was going to have to do it in a World Championships first to prove he was capable.

If anything, the World Championships in 2007—held in March and April during the Australian summer—were a dress rehearsal for the 2008 Olympics. Phelps entered in eight total events for the third time in a major international meet. Phelps started the meet leading off the winning 400 free relay team for the United States.

Phelps’ next event was the 200 free where he really made a statement. The world record at the time was 1:44.06 held by Thorpe set at the 2001 World Championships. Only one person had broken 1:45 since and that was Pieter van den Hoogenband in 2002, with a 1:44.89. The world record did not seem to be in jeopardy as Phelps was the second seed behind van den Hoogenband going into the final, and Phelps’ best time was a 1:45.20. The two had swam against Thorpe in Athens three years prior and were going head to head for the first time since.

This was perhaps one of Phelps’ most famous races where he showed his dominance over van den Hoogenband on each turn, kicking almost 10 meters off each wall. Phelps shocked the Australian crowd by beating Thorpe’s world record with a 1:43.86, firmly supplanting himself as the number one swimmer in the world. This also gave Phelps a valid point in being the greatest swimmer of all-time, beating Thorpe’s world record in Phelps’ fourth or fifth best event. That 1:44 Thorpe had set seemed untouchable for a long time until Phelps’ swim in 2007.

Phelps continued that momentum into the rest of the meet with a world record in the 200 fly, breaking the record by almost two seconds with a 1:52.09, arguably his most dominant performance in his career; a world record in the 200 IM, breaking 1:55 for the first time; a victory in the 100 fly, out-touching Ian Crocker in a pre-cursor to the magical touch in Beijing; and a world record in the 400 IM, breaking his record from Athens by two full seconds. Phelps also lead off the winning 800 free relay team that broke Australia’s world record by a second and a half in front of the passionate Australian crowd. Phelps went on to win seven total gold medals, missing a chance at winning an eighth in the 400 medley relay when the United States was disqualified in the prelims.

In eight days, Phelps helped break two of the three world records that Thorpe still had at the time in front of his home country’s crowd. It was around this time that the swimming world really noticed that Phelps had a legitimate chance at winning eight gold medals in a single meet. Many people say Phelps’ performance in Beijing was his greatest performance, where he broke four individual world records and three more relay records. But it was his performance in 2007 that easily supplanted himself as the greatest swimmer of all time. All he had to do in 2008 was win the eight gold medals and he’d silence the doubters that thought he would never surpass Thorpe and Spitz.

Later that year at the US National Championships in Indianapolis, Phelps nearly broke both backstroke world records with a 53.01 (52.98 was Aaron Peirsol’s record) and a 1:54.65 (1:54.32 was Ryan Lochte’s record), meaning he was ranked in the top three in seven different events in 2007. Rarely do you see a swimmer ranked in the top three globally in three different events today. Again, 2008 may be what made Phelps famous, but 2007 was what made him so dominant.

All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

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Ícaro CP

7 years ago

Victor Avs o último parágrafo, sobre o costas…

David Jackson

7 years ago

What a performance and a set up for ’08

Vittorio Pulpo

7 years ago

Thorpe is the greatest Freestyle swimmer of All Time. Agnel did 1.43.14 in London, first you have to win races, then you can look at chrono.