The National Aquatics Centre is a stadium of the night. Affectionately called the Water Cube, with its exterior consisting of 3,000 airfilled pockets of translucent plastic, it glows gleaming blue once darkness descends. Then, it actually takes the eye away from the Bird’s Nest next door. Ironically, then, the Water Cube will defy tradition and host swimming finals in the mornings. Such is the pressure of American prime time, and such is the domination of expectations in the Olympics by one American.

The venue is that much more dazzling because it waits to be conquered by the most anticipated individual feat of Beijing 2008. Will Michael Phelps create history by netting eight gold medals? (Mark Spitz got seven golds in Munich 1972. Phelps took six golds and two bronzes in Athens 2004.)

Phelps, hailed as the athlete of this Games, the person who could break new limits for the human species, a man who’s already set 25 world records, slipped into Beijing recently unannounced. Reports put that undetected arrival to the stubble Phelps acquired while training in Singapore. But in a press conference on Wednesday morning, he promised to shave it off before he begins his quest on August 9.

Such is the awe he commands at 23 that he had just to begin fielding questions by saying he felt “pretty good” for most of the six hundred or so hardened and attention-deficit reporters to break out into giggles.

Observers often resort to biological explanations to account for the Phelps phenomenon. His body expels lactic acid in a matter of minutes, they say, draining him of fatigue. His limbs are specially formed, so they bucket away water and give him traction, say others. And his own coach told Sports Illustrated that the Speedo LZR Racer bodysuit he now wears takes two per cent off a swimmer’s best times.

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