On the first of April 2007, Michael Phelps claimed his seventh gold medal at the World Aquatics Championships in Melbourne. He became the first man to win seven world titles at a single meet, setting five world records in the process.
A 400 IM victory by an eternity
The historic seventh gold came in the 400‑metre individual medley. Phelps touched in 4:06.22, slicing more than two seconds off his own world record. He won by a margin of 3.52 seconds, vanishing from the field on the breaststroke leg.
Thorpe’s mark falls on home soil
Earlier in the programme, Phelps delivered a sharper sting to the Australian crowd. In the 200‑metre freestyle he clocked 1:43.86, erasing Ian Thorpe’s world record of 1:44.06. The mark had stood since the 2001 Fukuoka championships.
He also lowered world marks in the 200 butterfly, the 200 individual medley, and the 4 × 200‑metre freestyle relay. Leading off that relay, Phelps split 1:45.36, a leg that would have beaten the individual 200‑free runner‑up by nearly a second. The United States set a world record of 7:03.24.
The only unfinished business was the medley relay. A false‑start disqualification for prelims butterflyer Ian Crocker denied Phelps a shot at an eighth gold. Reflecting on the week, Sports Illustrated writer Brian Cazeneuve told reporters, "Not only did he break them, but he broke some of them by more than a full second. Today, he broke one in the 400‑meter individual medley by more than two seconds. That's an eternity in swimming."
Two years earlier, a frustrated Phelps had left Montreal with six medals, convinced he had swum poorly. He swam better when angry, and Melbourne became the ruthless preview of Beijing, where eight golds would follow.
