SWIMMING: Late last night, when the water was calm and glowing dimly and an Athenian lady brushed down the pale blue carpeting on the empty pool deck, it had already been declared the race of the century. Sealed. Stamped.

A true Olympic classic in phoney, suspicious times. Three-thousand gold medals will be handed out in Athens over the next fortnight but Ian Thorpe's will always hold the brightest shine.

In the weeks and days leading up to last night's 200 metres freestyle final, there was a sense that the race would justify the hype. Only once in a generation do such strong personalities and freakishly talented athletes come along to meet at the same start line. That it was August and Athens gave this race a cachet that transcended swimming, the loneliest of all sports.

Ian Thorpe, the handsome and knightly master of his sport, lined up in lane five. Pieter van den Hoogenband, the cheerful Dutch star who took gold in the corresponding final four years ago, stood beside him in lane four.

And in the third lane stood Michael Phelps, the gangly American teenager who had shattered so many world records that he could declare his dream of winning eight gold medals without sounding like a pretender.

When they hit the water, the air all around was unbelievably charged. The race was, as all these epic Olympic swim races are, something both thrilling and essentially mysterious. Van den Hoogenband, an out-and-out sprinter, led as they turned on 50 metres, on 100, on 150. The atmosphere had been highly charged for the hour leading up to this showpiece, but as the swimmers re-surfaced after the final turn there was a primal and unforgettable surge of excitement. In the enclosure where we watched the race, swimmers awaiting other finals peered through curtains and sought out television monitors to witness it.

During those mad seconds, Thorpe was the definition of poetry in motion. He swam 26.79 over those last 50 metres, eclipsing the others and finishing with an Olympic record of 1:44:71.

All along, Thorpe, in his quiet and mannerly way, had claimed that Phelps' bid to eclipse Mark Spitz haul of seven gold medals was impossible.

"I have tried to answer this for a long time," he sighed last night when it came again. The Americans have obsessed on this grandiose plan for so many months that they found it hard to accept the bubble was burst.

"No. No. And No. I didn't think it could be done. Once, it was suggested I might try but that never interested me. Yet I would have loved to witness Michael achieve that."

Thorpe's bearing is so statesman-like and compelling that he alone helps to restore lost faith in the Olympics. It is impossible not to be moved by the grace with which the man carries himself, and, at the same time, to sympathise with the younger Phelps, who seems gauche in comparison. After four almost solitary years of swimming, Phelps came to Athens under fantastically high expectations: he was the selling point of these Games for the American television audience.

Last night, the disappointment of his bronze overshadowed the gold medals won by his compatriots Natalie Coughlin (100 metres backstroke) and Aaron Piersol (100 metres backstroke).

"It isn't fair on us and it isn't fair on Michael," responded Piersol later, but he knew that the Phelps story had bloated into something uncontrollable.

Phelps, silent all week as he padded past the media masses pressed against the railings of the mixed zone, was unrepentant when he finally spoke. In his USA track-suit, drinking water and sitting along side his coach, Bob Bowman, he suddenly looked like what he is: a kid.

"I had an opportunity and I tried to do something that Spitz did and I tried to match it. But I felt I would be successful winning just one medal and I have already done that. I had something I wanted to do so I came in and tried. But I guess you could say a little bit of pressure was gone."

Phelps may well go on to become the greatest all-round swimmer in history. But perhaps the noisy and tasteless fascination of his dreams of an all-time haul has cheapened the worth of the medals he will win here. He is still learning. After Sydney, the world soon forgot about Ian Thorpe. But the Australian continued his habit of beginning his first training lap at five o'clock every morning.

He was already recognised as the master of middle distance but needed this medal to prove it. That he managed it against the man who stunned the swim-crazy patriots of Sydney made it all the sweeter.

After the medal ceremony, Thorpe, wreathed in laurels, courteously allowed his young American to walk ahead of him. After a few more waves, they walked back towards the warm-down pool. Thorpe had his hand on Phelps' shoulder and he said something that made the American laugh. It is a strange fame that swimming brings.

As they moved out of sight, it was as though they were retreating to an underwater world the rest of us cannot understand and that they will not re-surface until this glorious madness has moved across the world to Beijing.