Beijing Olympic Games

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By BETH HARRIS, AP Sports Writer

BEIJING (AP)—Michael Phelps couldn’t have done it without them.

And they sure didn’t mind their supporting role.

Phelps’ U.S. relay teammates gathered in a circle, arms draped around each other’s shoulders. They congratulated him on winning an eighth Olympic gold medal and he thanked them for helping him make history.

“We’ve been a part of history and it ended beautifully,” backstroker Aaron Peirsol said.

Phelps seemed to relish being one of the guys at these games, playing cards and killing time with his teammates when he wasn’t collecting gold medals.

“So many times it was five or six of us sitting around the table and we’d be laughing the whole entire time,” he said Sunday. “Outside of the pool, in the pool, on the medals podium, I’ll have tons of memories from this and they will be with me forever.”

Unlike Mark Spitz, who was known for playing mind games with his teammates, Phelps appears to be well-liked. Many of them lauded him throughout the competition, even when he had beaten them badly in his individual races.

“Some of the greatest memories from meets like this are the times spent with teammates,” Phelps said. “There were a lot of rookies on the men’s team, some of them I didn’t really know as well as others. Playing spades, playing Risk, relaxing and getting to know everyone on the team, being part of Team USA and the Olympic team is one of the greatest memories I will take from this.”

And 16 of his teammates will have more than memories, they’ll be taking home gold medals.

Some of them never got to swim the relay finals with Phelps. They did their duty in the evening prelims—when he was asleep back at the athletes’ village— and became his cheerleaders for the finals.

Peirsol and Ryan Lochte earned gold medals in individual events, but the other 14 guest-starred with Phelps on the three relays.

Phelps especially needed Jason Lezak, who swam clutch anchor legs on both the 400-meter freestyle and 400 medley relays.

At 32, the old man of the U.S. men’s team beat Frenchman Alain Bernard to the wall in the first of three relays to preserve Phelps’ run at taking down Mark Spitz’s vaunted record of seven gold medals in a single games.

Lezak was called on again Sunday, with gold No. 8 on the line, to help the Americans finish off a relay sweep for the first time since 1996. Phelps gave Lezak the lead for the final two laps, and Lezak powered home in the second-fastest 100 split of the race.

“I was thinking not to blow the lead,” he said. “I was really nervous. I wanted to take it out strong and come home as strong as I could.”

Peirsol, the 100 backstroke champion, led off and put the U.S. in first place. Brendan Hansen, going against double breaststroke gold medalist Kosuke Kitajima of Japan, made it interesting with the U.S. falling behind Japan and Australia on his leg.

But Phelps picked him up, going 0.74 seconds faster than anyone else on his split to get the U.S. back in first. That set up Lezak to take on 100 free silver medalist Eamon Sullivan of Australia. He got within a half-body length of Lezek but that was all.

“Certainly it would have been something if we didn’t do it,” Peirsol said. “But it’s not like we were getting pressure to swim for Mike. We wanted to do this not just for Mike, but for ourselves.”

Phelps only competes in the finals, so he relied on his teammates to swim strongly enough in the preliminaries to qualify and secure a spot in coveted lane 4. No false starts, no illegal strokes.

They came through big-time.

Matt Grevers, Mark Gangloff, Ian Crocker, Garrett Weber-Gale, Cullen Jones, Nathan Adrian, Ben Wildman-Tobriner, Lochte, Ricky Berens, Peter Vanderkaay, David Walters, Erik Vendt and Klete Keller contributed to Phelps’ epic feat.

“For such an individual sport, we really know how to get together for those relays,” Peirsol said.