Daily double: Phelps, Hoff set swim records
Less than an hour later, the teenager he compares to a little sister joined Phelps in the record book.
Phelps set a world record in his first event of the U.S. Olympic swimming trials, touching just ahead of Ryan Lochte to win the 400-meter individual medley in 4 minutes, 5.25 seconds Sunday night.
Katie Hoff matched her former North Baltimore teammate in the 400 IM, taking down the women's mark in 4:31.12.
Quite the start to the eight-day meet.
Wearing the high-tech Speedo LZR Racer, Phelps beat his own mark of 4:06.22, set at last year's world championships in Australia when he turned in one of the greatest performances in swimming history with seven gold medals.
After saying he had no fear of Phelps, Lochte proved it by also going under the previous record. But his time of 4:06.08 was only good enough for second with Phelps in the next lane over.
"That was probably one of the most painful races of my life," the winner said. "Everything was left in the pool. I definitely would not have been able to do it without Lochte beside me. He's a great friend and a great competitor. I love racing him."
"Stephanie really raised the bar when she broke my old record," Hoff said. "I'm just excited for Beijing, and I think it's going to be a really tough challenging race with her."
Like Phelps, Hoff also was wearing the revolutionary Speedo suit, which has been worn for 40 of the 44 world marks set since it was unveiled in mid-February.
"It definitely gave me a few tenths," Phelps said. "At the end, when I was getting a little tired, the suit gave me a little extra edge."
Phelps was slightly off world-record pace after the opening butterfly, but he had a body-length lead on Lochte as they switched to the backstroke.
The minus sign — indicative of a swimmer under record pace — flashed on the board when Phelps made his flip turn on the back, sending the crowd at the Qwest Center into a frenzy. But Lochte was starting to close the gap, and he nearly pulled even as they headed toward the far wall in the breaststroke.
Lochte, a world recordholder himself, was less than a second behind at the 300 mark and looked poised to pull off a monumental upset. He and Phelps went at it stroke for stroke over the final two laps, but Phelps never relinquished his lead.
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