I was dumbfounded.  And then a wee bit angry.

Don’t get me wrong, I am happy Phelps won. I’ll get to that in a second…

The race isn’t over at the last stroke before the wall. It’s over AT the wall.

So here I am on Saturday, stunned at Cavic.  And utterly stunned by his remarks quoted in The NY Times:

“People will be asking me this for years, and people I’m sure will be bringing this up for years, saying, ‘You won that race,’ ” Cavic said. “If I lost by a tenth of a second or two tenths of a second, I could probably be a lot cooler about this. But with a hundredth of a second, I’ll have a whole lot more people saying, ‘You really won that race.’ And that kind of makes me feel good, but I’m completely happy with where I am.”

No.  You did not win that race.

You could have.  You were beautiful and beautifully fast.  The last 25 meters I was mesmerized by your form, holding my breath and remembering with a pounding heart the excitement and comraderie of competitive swimming and cheering you on. You had that race!

But you dropped the ball.  You coasted in.  I stood in disbelief as the end of the race, from every possible angle, was replayed over and over and over again.

And then disbelief turned to irrational anger (after all, I wasn’t the one racing!). You handed the race to Phelps, who absolutely, competitively, took it from you.  And for this reason, for the remembrance of a basic tenet of training – that ALL of us who ever swam know can make or break a race - Phelps won.

He was fast.

And when it really mattered, he was faster to the wall.