Crocker Is Set Up to Leave Phelps’ Shadow

Michael Phelps glides through the water like a sailboat on a calm sea. He glides through news conferences without a hint of self-doubt. He glides through a mind-boggling array of races at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Long Beach without an apparent bead of sweat.

Is there no one who can distract, disturb or disrupt this human swimming machine?

Just one man: Ian Crocker.

Phelps lost only one race last year, the 100-meter butterfly at the World Championships in Barcelona, Spain. Despite hitting the wall in a personal-best 51.10 seconds, Phelps finished behind Crocker’s 50.98, his personal best and a world record.

Is Phelps obsessed with the loss? You be the judge. He keeps a poster of Crocker on the wall near his bed back home in Maryland. And it’s not out of admiration for the University of Texas swimming star out of Maine.

So how does it feel to be perceived as a potential giant-killer, to be the buoy blocking the lane of a man hoping to swim to record Olympic glory?

It can be a burden. When Crocker sat down Tuesday for a media session before the start of the trials, the questions came in waves, only a few different ones repeated over and over again.

Can Phelps win seven Olympic gold medals?

Should Phelps be trying for seven?

Will his bid to make a historic splash shine a brighter spotlight on his sport?

Should he lose a race early in the Athens Games, will he suffer a letdown that will affect him in the events that follow?

Patiently, politely, but with an undercurrent of annoyance, Crocker answered each question as if it was the first time he’d heard it.

Yes, he was impressed by Phelps’ bold attempt to equal or improve upon the seven gold medals won by Mark Spitz in 1972. No, Crocker didn’t know if Phelps could pull it off. Sure, it had to be good for the sport. No, Crocker couldn’t predict how the course of the competition would affect Phelps’ frame of mind.

Had Crocker snapped at the media barrage, it would have been understandable. Had he asked where all the Ian Crocker questions were, he could not have been blamed.

But he figured his time would come when he finally got into the Long Beach pool for his first event, the 100-meter freestyle. And sure enough, on Sunday, Crocker carved out his own spot in the 2004 Games by finishing second in 49.06, well behind front swimmer Jason Lezak’s 48.41, but good enough to guarantee Crocker a trip to the Athens Games, eligible for the individual and relay races.

“I just started swimming that race,” Crocker said, “and I’m still trying to learn the ins and outs of it. If I was overlooked in the past, there was probably a reason for it, but, hopefully, not anymore.”

Although Sunday was momentous for Crocker in terms of qualifying for Athens, it is just a warmup for what may follow today and tomorrow. He and Phelps are entered in the 100-meter butterfly, a rerun of Barcelona. If both get through today’s preliminary and semifinal heats as expected, they will be in opposing lanes in Tuesday’s finals, Phelps’ bedroom poster come to life.

No one would be foolhardy enough to predict another Phelps defeat, but fellow swimmer Neil Walker was a Crocker booster Sunday.

“The 100 fly in the next few days, keep your eyes open for that,” Walker said, adding that Crocker “is going to get better and better.”

Perhaps if he somehow pulls off the upset, Crocker can autograph that bedroom poster for Phelps.

The soft-spoken, often stoic Crocker cracked a smile at that suggestion.

Crocker said, “I don’t think he’d like that.”