Salt Lake Tribune, with an acknowledgement that the preoccupations of the media-fuelled U.S. populace are not necessarily those of the rest of the world. "ATHENS, Greece Ian Thorpe once described American swimmer Michael Phelps' quest for eight Olympic gold medals as "ridiculous."
Monday night, the Australian "Thorpedo" went out and proved his theory in the pool. Not that Phelps really did anything wrong, since there's no way to play defense in this sport.
Phelps bettered his own American record in the 200-meter freestyle, and all that gave him was a bronze medal which cost him exactly $1 million.
In one of the most anticipated events in swimming or any other sport in these Games, Thorpe topped defending champion Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands and Phelps to win the gold medal in an Olympic-record 1 minute, 44.71 seconds.
The American version of this story is not so much that Thorpe won but that Phelps lost, only because his hopes of breaking Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven goal medals counting three relays became one of the major themes [driving TV audiences] going into Athens." Read the whole thing.