BEIJING - American Michael Phelps collected his second gold medal of the Summer Olympics Monday morning in a race where the Canadian men's 4x100-metre relay team finished in sixth place.
Phelps, who is on a quest to win a record eight gold medals at these Games, helped the American 4x100-relay team break the world record and win in 3:08.24. The Americans had qualified for the final by swimming a world record time in Sunday evening's preliminaries.
The Canadian crew of Brent Hayden of Mission, B.C., Joel Greenshields of Airdire, Alta., Colin Russell of Oshawa, Ont., and Rick Say of Victoria were sixth in 3:12.26. They had qualified for the final by swimming a Canadian record.
Hayden had also broke his own Canadian record in the 200-metre freestyle to advance to the morning semifinals but decided to withdraw to concentrate on the relay final.
Russell swam the 200 but his time of 1:48.13 wasn't good enough to advance to the eight-man final. Phelps advanced to the final but with the fourth best time.
In other finals Monday, Japan's Kosuke Kitajima won the 100-metre breaststroke in a world record time of 58.91 seconds. That knocked .22 of a second off the old record held by American Brendan Hansen who finished fourth.
Australia took gold and bronze in the women's 100 butterfly. Lisbeth Trickett won the race in 56.73 while Jessicah Schipper was third in 57.25. American Christine Magnuson took the silver in 57.10.
In an exciting race, Britain's Rebbecca Adlington beat American Katie Hoff to win the women's 400-metre freestyle. Adlington won in 4:03.22.
The schedule at this year's Olympics has been tumbled with the finals moved to the morning to accommodate U.S. television.
In other races Monday, Julia Wilkinson failed to advance to the finals of the 100 backstroke.
"I'm not happy," said the Stratford, Ont., resident whose time of 1:00.60 left her 12th in the semifinals. "I tried a lot harder and I wasn't faster. I have that in me. It's disappointing that I won't be there."
Jillian Tyler of Calgary and Annamay Pierse of Vancouver both missed qualifying in the 100-metre breaststroke. Pierse's time of 1:08.27 left her 10th while Tyler was 13th in 1:09.00.
Canada hasn't been on the podium yet in the Olympic pool but some strong results show the country's swimmers are at least in the race in Beijing, not watching wide-eyed from the sidelines.
They still have a long climb before reaching the summit with American superstar Michael Phelps, who set a world record in winning the 400-metre individual medley. Still, by making finals, breaking national records and swimming some personal bests, the Canadians showed they are no longer in danger of falling off a cliff.
They have already reached three finals and broken eight national records.
"We knew we had it in us," said Hayden. "We're on the right track right now."
Brian Johns of Richmond, B.C., finished seventh in the 400-metre IM Sunday morning in 4:13.38. He broke an eight-year-old Canadian record to reach the final. Phelps won in 4:03.84, clipping 1.49 seconds off his own world record.
The women's 4x100-metre relay team of Wilkinson, Erica Morningstar, Genevieve Saumur and Audrey Lacroix were eighth in a Canadian record time of 3:38.32. The Netherlands won the race in 3:33.76.
Wilkinson tempered the frustration of not winning a medal with the knowledge the relay team shaved half a second off the Canadian record.
"That's the best we could do today," she said. "We were in the race the whole time. We showed we could race with the rest of the world."
U.S. President George W. Bush was part of a sellout crowd at the 17,000-seat National Aquatics Center, or Water Cube, for Sunday's finals. The space-age looking building, which resembles a package covered in bubble wrap, was hot and noisy and somehow managed to get even louder when a Chinese swimmer touched the water.
A determined Canadian contingent worked hard to cheer on anyone wearing a Maple Leaf.
In Sunday evening's preliminaries, the relay team swam to a Canadian record of 3:13.68 to qualify seventh.
The American team of Nathan Adrian, Cullen Jones, Ben Wildman-Tobriner and Matt Grevers qualified in a world record time of 3:13.23 . That's .23 of a second better than the old mark the U.S. set at the 2006 Pan Pacific Swim Meet in Victoria.
The 2004 Athens Olympics was a disaster for Canada, which failed to win a medal in the pool for the first time since 1964. Canadians made just three finals. Breaststroker Mike Brown was the only swimmer to break a Canadian record. Many others failed to even match personal bests.
This year's results give reason for optimism, but national anthems aren't played for seventh-place finishes.
Pierre Lafontaine, Swimming Canada's chief executive officer, knows winning medals is what the Canadian public wants.
"I would love to give them medals," said Lafontaine, who was hired to clean up the mess after the Athens. "That's where we want to be so bad.
"We're going to get there because now we are knocking on the door. We have a long ways to go but I think we are starting to win the little victories. We starting to eat away at how far behind we were. I think we are getting there."
Wilkinson, who reached a final in her first Olympic event, said the team came to Beijing hoping to exorcise the demons from the last Olympics.
"We've come a long ways from Athens," said the 21-year-old who spits out words like a machine gun. "Athens was kind of a wake-up call and everybody knew we can do better.
"That's been our goal for the last four years. We are doing what we were prepared for."
Canada's best medal chance still is in the men's 4x200-metre relay.
"I think there's an ability to be there," said Lafontaine.
While the Canadians continue to audition, Phelps looked comfortable in the starring role Sunday.
He pumped his arms in the air and raised his fingers into a No. 1 sign after his victory. His mother celebrated in the stands.
The swimming phenomenon wants to break Mark Spitz's 36-year-old record of seven gold medals at one Olympics and the Canadians are among those watching him with interest.
"I can't say anything he does surprises me," said Johns. "This is the Tiger Woods of swimming. He is a superstar, one of a kind. He makes everyone else better by going after him.
"He has a lot of races left. There is somebody gearing up just to beat him every single day. It will be exciting to watch him swim for the rest of the week."
Both Phelps and Johns were wearing the Speedo LZR Racer suit. The form-fitting garment is designed to have less friction in the water while keeping a swimmer streamlined. More than 50 world records have been set by bodies squeezed into the LZR Racer.
Johns wasn't sure how much of an advantage the suits are.
"Everybody is wearing the same thing," he said. "It doesn't change the race that much. It's just everybody is using a little bit better technology. It might improve all the times a little bit more but the race is still the same."
Lafontaine said instead of being intimidated by Phelps, his swimmers are trying to clear the bar the American has raised.
"Michael is a great swimmer," said Lafontaine. "He's got two arms, two legs, just like a lot of our kids. When you see that, you want to be there too.
"We want that (attitude) instead of thinking `That's impossible.' That's the neat part of our team now."
