By Phillip Whitten
\nPhotos by Peter Bick<\/p>\n
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, April 4. MICHAEL Phelps had chalked up his fourth win in four tries less than an hour before, but now he faced an equally daunting test in the person of one Ryan Lochte, University of Florida.<\/p>\n
Lochte had twice lowered the American\/NCAA\/US Open marks in the 200 yards individual medley in the past month, taking the standard down to 1:41.71. But Phelps owned the world record for 200 meters, not to mention the eight fastest metric IMs in history. He had no intention of letting Lochte take his crown.<\/p>\n
The rest of the field included some very strong swimmers \u2013 notably Robert Margalis and Eric Shanteau \u2013 but this shaped up as a two-man race.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the way it developed.<\/p>\n
Phelps came up first and ahead after the start and flew through the first lap fly in 25.56 with Lochte in second but more than half a second behind (26.08).<\/p>\n
Lochte holds the American record for 200 yards backstroke, but Phelps added 7-hundredths to his lead on the backstroke leg, turning in 55.35 to his rival\u2019s 55.94. Shanteau, fifth at the 50, moved into third at the 100 in 56.98.<\/p>\n
SwimAtlanta\u2019s Shanteau, third at last year\u2019s Olympic Trials in both IMs, unleashed a wicked 34.00 breaststroke leg to turn at the 150 only one tenth of a second behind Lochte, as Phelps extended his lead to 1.27 seconds over Lochte.<\/p>\n
Lochte was fastest on the freestyle leg \u2013 27.52 \u2013 but Phelps\u2019 27.83 was more than enough to allow him to win comfortably in 1:57.44, giving him the nine fastest performances of all time. Lochte\u2019s 1:58.40 was a PR \u2013 faster than his silver medal-winning time in Athens \u2013 and makes him the third fastest man in history.
\n.
\nShanteau touched in 2:00.29, third once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Phillip Whitten Photos by Peter Bick INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, April 4. MICHAEL Phelps had chalked up his fourth win in four tries less than an hour before, but now he<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa","category-world","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n