Bolt wins 200, declares he's a "legend"

LONDON -- Here is the measure of Usain Bolt's brilliance. He eased up because he felt tightness in his back as he rounded the corner in the men's 200 meters Thursday at Olympic Stadium and, in his words, "cruised" to the finish line, a winner nonetheless in 19.32 seconds. That time, 19.32, is the Michael Johnson gold-shoes race from Atlanta in 1996. When we all thought that was untouchable.

That was before Bolt came along. He has re-defined everything.

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Allyson Felix's killer speed wins the 200

LONDON -- There are moments in track and field, and Olympic, history that take your breath away. In the years to come, when they show Allyson Felix's powerful charge down the straightaway to win the women's 200 meters, it will be no less breathtaking than it was in person here Wednesday night.

What you saw here was speed. Killer speed. Awesome speed, and the force of will, and eight years of waiting to claim the gold medal in the 200, the race she has always called her baby.

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World's best hurdlers: Jones-ing for respect

LONDON -- Four years ago, Lolo Jones seemed headed for victory in the 100-meter hurdles in Beijing. She clipped the ninth hurdle. Dawn Harper is the 2008 Olympic champion, now and forever. Lolo Jones is, however, way better known than Dawn Harper, the subject of a marketing campaign that has made her arguably the best-known member of the U.S. track team even though, as many have noted, Lolo Jones has won the 2008 and 2010 60-meter world indoor hurdle championships and, on the international stage, not much else.

There comes a time when you have to walk the walk and, Tuesday night in a light rain, before 80,000 people at Olympic Stadium, Lolo Jones was given every opportunity.

She finished fourth.

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The pull of history over the 400-meter hurdles

LONDON -- Virtually everyone, even those who have only a passing knowledge of track and field, knows Edwin Moses. In the 1970s and 1980s, Moses was unbeatable. Literally. He won 122 straight races in the 400-meter hurdles. He won Olympic gold in the event in Montreal in 1976 and again in Los Angeles in 1984; surely the U.S.-led boycott of the Games in Moscow in 1980 was the only thing that prevented him from gold there, too. In 1988, in Seoul, Moses won bronze.

On Monday night, Angelo Taylor -- out in Lane 4 -- felt the weight, the pull, of history. The Olympic champion in the 400-meter hurdles in 2000 in Sydney and again in Beijing in 2008, he had the opportunity to tie or even surpass the great Edwin Moses.

There is a reason the late filmmaker Bud Greenspan used to say that the most interesting stories at the Olympics arrive in fourth or fifth place.

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Bolt is back and still the best

LONDON -- The world all but paused for a moment, held its collective breath to see if Usain Bolt still had it Sunday night, could still fire our collective imagination with his ability to run fast and true like nobody else on Planet Earth. The stillness before the gun went off gave way to a huge roar in Olympic Stadium as Bolt and seven other men, the fastest field-ever, roared down the straightaway.

The seven others, of course, held fast to their own dreams. For the most part, the rest of the world wished for Bolt, the man who ran a world-record 9.69 in Beijing in 2008, lowered that record to 9.58 in Berlin in 2009 but who had struggled with injury and form and even a false start -- at the 2011 world championships -- since.

The dreams of so many simply could not, would not, be denied.

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Phelps reaches the end, so limitless and free

LONDON -- This is the end, so limitless and free, Jim Morrison sang, and so it came on this Saturday night for Michael Phelps, the one and only, the greatest athlete in Olympic history. In what he said repeatedly would be his last competitive swim, Phelps, 27, swam the butterfly leg of the men's 4x100 medley relay for the U.S. team on the final night of the swim meet at the 2012 Olympic Games, the Americans winning in 3:29.35.

The victory gave Phelps his 22nd Olympic medal, his 18th gold. He finished these Games with six medals -- four gold, two silver.

He became the first male swimmer to throw the Olympic three-peat, and did it in not just one event but two, the 200 IM and the 100 butterfly. The medley victory also made him the third person to win three golds in that event, along with Jason Lezak and Ian Crocker.

"I have been able," he said late Saturday in emphasizing he truly is retiring from racing, "to do everything I wanted."

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Phelps doubles up on three-peats with win in 100m butterfly

LONDON -- He was seventh at the turn. Once again, just as in Beijing four years ago, Michael Phelps was seventh after 50 meters of the 100-meter butterfly.

For those who don't understand the Michael Phelps way, this must be sheer agony to watch. It's tough to watch even for those who understand it completely, like his mother, Debbie, her arms draped over the railing in the stands. The 100 fly is such a short race. To be seventh of eight halfway through, and with his Beijing arch-rival Milorad Cavic leading the race at the halfway mark-- surely that is tempting fate, right?

Nah.

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200m IM performance proves Phelps still is The Man

LONDON -- Last year in Shanghai, Ryan Lochte not only beat Michael Phelps in the 200-meter individual medley, he set the world record, 1:54 flat. Phelps wasn't in his best shape. Even so, he said he felt himself on the last lap gaining, gaining, gaining. It wasn't enough. He knew then that if he wanted to be serious about swimming, serious about this grueling and demanding event in particular, he had to get his backside into the cold pool early in the morning and re-dedicate himself to being the champion he was and could yet be again.

In Lochte, Phelps figured he drew a rival as formidable as one could find, a man who not only could but would test Phelps physically but mentally. Many people on the pool deck might be afraid of Michael Phelps. Ryan Lochte assuredly was not.

The test of will, stamina and strength came down to this Thursday at the Aquatic Center: Who wanted it more?

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Adrian instant American hero after golden performance

LONDON -- One hesitates, truly hesitates, before proclaiming that so-and-so is the next American hero. It's a hard deal being a role model and an all-American guy these days, when everyone has a camera phone and social media is everywhere and someone you just met abruptly wants to know everything about you. Beyond which, our heroes, as we have seen far too many times, have a way of proving themselves all too susceptible to the intoxications and pressures of being, well, a hero.

That said, if you had to pick a good-looking, hard-body guy who swims really fast, who comes from a great family, who's emblematic of the multicultural United States of the 21st century, who's soft-spoken and well-spoken and who on Wednesday night won the heavyweight championship of swimming, the Olympic men's 100-meter, the first American to win it in 24 years -- America, meet Nathan Adrian.

In a thrilling race at the London Aquatics Center, Adrian, a 23-year-old from Bremerton, Wash., a product of the University of California at Berkeley, out-touched Australia's James Magnussen  by one-hundredth of a second for the victory.

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Michael Phelps, the first of his kind

LONDON -- You can't write history. It doesn't come neatly packaged, wrapped up with a pretty bow. If Michael Phelps had been able to write the script here Tuesday night, of course he would have won his signature event, the 200-meter butterfly. Didn't happen. He got caught between strokes at the very end, and he took silver. What a way to win his 18th career Olympic medal, tying him with Russian gymnast Larysa Latinina, who won her medals in the 1950s and 1960s.

An hour or so later, when the U.S. 4x200 relay team won, with Phelps swimming the anchor leg, he suddenly had 19, most ever.

And after four finals here at the 2012 London Games, Michael Phelps finally had his first gold medal of these Olympics.

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