Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metre butterfly

Due to a combination of the venue, Beijing National Aquatics Center (better known as the Water Cube), which was claimed to be built to increase the speed of the swimmers, and the recently introduced LZR Racer swim suits, which had been proven to give the swimmer a lower time by 1.9 to 2.2%, some analysts were predicting that many fast times and world records would be set in all the swimming events. As with almost every event that he entered in at the 2008 Summer Olympics, Michael Phelps was the favorite to win the men's 100 metre butterfly. Since winning the gold medal at the previous Games, in Athens, Phelps had demonstrated his superiority in this event, by also becoming world champion at the Melbourne 2007 World Championships, and achieving victory at the United States Olympic Trials. , seen here in February 2008, was the heavy favorite to win the gold medal. Going into the event, Phelps' compatriot Ian Crocker was seen as the swimmer with the best chance of beating Phelps. Crocker beat Phelps' 100 metre butterfly world record in 2003, and had since lowered it twice: once at the 2004 United States Olympic trials, and then at the 2005 World Championships in Montreal. Before the Olympics, Crocker and Phelps held the seventeen fastest times ever in the event. At the 2008 European Championships, Čavić won the men's 50 metre butterfly and was the heavy favorite to win at twice that distance, but was suspended for wearing a "Kosovo is Serbia" T-shirt on the medal podium. Other possible medal contenders included Andriy Serdinov of Ukraine, who had won the Olympic bronze medal in 2004, and Venezuelan Albert Subriats, a bronze medalist at the 2007 World Championships and seen as a potential spoiler, if he could match or improve on his 51.82 time, in Beijing. ==Competition==

Heats The heats began on 14 August, at 19:57 local time (CST or UTC+8). There were nine preliminary heats, but all sixteen qualifiers came from the last five heats. Only three swimmers participated in the first heat, which was won by Andrejs Dūda of Latvia with a time of 55.20 seconds. The first semifinal was won by Michael Phelps with a time of 50.97 seconds. Other three swimmers qualified from this semifinal: Andrew Lauterstein (51.27 seconds), Jason Dunford (51.33 seconds), and Ryan Pini (51.62 seconds). New time bests set in the semifinals included the Oceanic and Australian records (set by Lauterstein), and the Chinese record (set by Shi). Before the race, Milorad Čavić made headlines by saying in an interview that it would be better for swimming if he beat Phelps. while Phelps made the split in seventh place, just 0.62 seconds behind Čavić. It turned out that Phelps had actually finished one one-hundredth of a second ahead of Čavić, with a time of 50.58 seconds. Phelps even admitted that, at first, he thought the extra stroke he took had cost him the gold medal, until he looked at the scoreboard displaying the results. Andrew Lauterstein won the bronze medal, also beating Crocker by one one-hundredth of a second. Although he finished last, swimmer Ryan Pini made history as the first swimmer from Papua New Guinea to swim in an Olympic final, and even received a call from the prime minister Michael Somare congratulating him. Most notably though, Phelps won his seventh gold medal at these Games, tying Mark Spitz's record for most gold medals won at a single Olympic Games. Officials of the International Swimming Federation (FINA) watched the video in slow motion, and announced that Phelps' victory would be upheld. Ben Ekumbo, a FINA referee announced that "It's very clear that the Serbian swimmer touched second after Michael Phelps." In April 2015, Mark Spitz said that he had been sent an email posted by Omega which stated that Phelps had lost the 100m butterfly final. == Records ==

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows. The following records were established during the competition: == Results ==

Heats Semifinals Semifinal 1 Semifinal 2 Final ==References==