Phelps takes and delivers a knockout

ALL week Milorad Cavic had talked the talk about how he would be the one to deliver the knockout blow to Michael Phelps in his pet event, the 100 metres butterfly.
But just an hour before the pair stared each other down on the starting blocks, an Australian teenager almost did the job for him.
Phelps was at the end of his warm-up for the most anticipated race at the world titles and thought he had enough room to get past a young girl casually doing backstroke in his lane. He was wrong.
‘‘We pretty much collided. I hit the back of her head, my goggles snapped and I think we smashed shoulders,’’ Phelps said.
‘‘We were all freaked out a little bit about it. Bob (Bowman his coach) said to me if it’s really bad we won’t swim. I said no, I’m not doing that. I’ve got to swim, I’ll be fine.’’
‘‘I just tried to put it to the back of my mind. It kind of shocked me, took the wind out of me a little bit.’’
It took the wind out of the teenager, too, sprinter Cate Campbell. She was preparing for the 50 metres freestyle semi-finals, her only event in Rome, and a race-thwarting incident was not what she needed either.
‘‘It was nothing a couple of Panadols couldn’t fix,’’ Campbell said. ‘‘I just laughed it off and continued with my warm up.’’
She came out later that night and swam a personal best.
As for Phelps, he too fared OK. He won the battle with Cavic and the war with the clock.
Wearing his ‘‘slow’’ Speedo LZR, Phelps ran down Cavic and became the first man to break 50 seconds in the event, posting 49.82 seconds. Cavic too broke the barrier, but his 49.95 seconds was worth only silver.
‘‘I’m glad he won or we couldn’t have told you that (about the collision),’’ Bowman said of his star Phelps. ‘‘It would have been an excuse. I was a little worried. It took him out of his game for a few minutes.
‘‘Maybe that’s why he was so fast, it gave them an adrenalin rush.’’
The 100 metres butterfly was the main event of these World Championships, the rematch of the famous clash between Cavic and Phelps in Beijing where the American just out-touched the Serb. Or did he?
Earlier this week, Cavic taunted Phelps, saying he was first but the technology didn’t register his touch.
Cavic then turned to the swimsuit farce, and with Phelps in the slow suit, he offered to buy him one of the fast Arena suits, or they could swim in briefs.
Phelps responded after the race: ‘‘You could tell by my celebration it satisfied me a little bit. Everyone is entitled to say whatever they want.
‘‘I think the coolest thing is being able to have races like this because it really brings the best out of everybody. I think that is what sport is all about. You really have to go to that next level when you race these kinds of people.’’
Cavic was asked after the race if his pre-race tactics had played into Phelps’ hands.
‘‘I have nothing but respect for the guy, he is the best,’’ Cavic said.
‘‘When I race Michael Phelps I want him at his best because only when he is at his best could I ever feel like I’ve done the race that I’ve always wanted.
‘‘There are no regrets, I did my best, he did something huge, huge.’’