One down, seven to go; Phelps crushes world record in 400 IM

Michael Phelps got his pursuit of an Olympic-record eight swimming gold medals started in impressive fashion Sunday, lowering his world record in the 400-meter individual medley by more than a second to win in 4 minutes, 3.84 seconds at National Aquatics Center, aka "The Water Cube."

Phelps' 25th world-record performance might have been his most dominant of all, certainly on par with his 200 butterfly effort at last year's FINA World Championships in Melbourne, Australia, when his feet were ahead of the electronic world-record line shown on TV. He lowered his Olympic record of 4:07.82 -- set in Saturday night's prelims -- by nearly four seconds.

Hungary Laszlo Cseh took silver in a European record 4:06.16, the fourth-fastest mark in the history of the event.

American Ryan Lochte, expected to be Phelps' toughest challenger, fell to 0-9 all-time head to head against his close friend and rival, including 0-8 in championship races, by taking third in 4:08.09. Lochte took second to Phelps (4:05.25) at the U.S. Olympic trials June 29 in 4:06.08.

Lochte stayed within three-tenths of Phelps through 250 meters -- or the first half of the breaststroke leg -- but Phelps stretched his lead over Lochte to nearly a second entering the freestyle leg and only built on his advantage from there. Cseh made a late charge in the final 75 meters to overtake Lochte for the silver.

Phelps' victory gave him seven career gold medals -- trailing Mark Spitz's nine and Matt Biondi and Jenny Thompson's eight on the American all-time list -- and nine total, moving him into a tie for seventh in Olympic history with Australian legend Ian Thorpe and former Russian world-record holder Aleksandr Popov.