The Legend MARK SPITZ

Of the 16 men’s swimming events at the London Olympics, Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte or both are swimming in all, except four: it’s their show. Nobody is discussing who’s getting second and third and fourth place, the theme of the Games is really them.

The Olympic Games have a special atmosphere. International competitions in swimming last 4-5 days at most, and this is eight days — eight days with 10,000 athletes to eat with, walk around and meander through. It’s noisy, and as the Olympics move on more people have finished their events, because they only have one, and then it gets more chaotic, and more noisy.

If you have never been in the Olympics before, they can talk to you until you’re blue in the face about what you can expect, but the issue is how do you react to that. Michael Phelps or Ryan Lochte certainly have a lot of experience at being able to understand that.

Missy Franklin, a 17-year-old American girl, is swimming in seven events, which is also interesting. I don’t think she is touted to get seven gold medals, but she is touted to potentially get seven medals, which in itself is an interesting byline.

Being young means that she may not think about everything, and the innocence of never having done it before could perhaps help. But since it is such a new experience, it is impossible for her to understand all the things that are going to be thrown her way.

Phelps appears certain to become the athlete with the maximum number of Olympic medals in history, surpassing the 18 of Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina in the 1950s and 1960s.

With two more medals he ties it, with three he beats it. That’s a given. He is in three relays: unless those American relays get disqualified, he’s going to get that record. And he could actually beat it by five medals, which means the tally could go up to 23. But who’s counting with Michael Phelps?

It’s really about somebody’s journey and their career and their longevity being able to go to a lot of different Olympics.

But, for example, if you are a basketball player and you go to five Olympic Games, the most you could possibly get would be five gold medals: some sports are limited by that. Does that take away from the grandness of Latynina and Phelps? Absolutely not.

Greatness in swimming has always been measured by breaking world records. Now they have got to find another measure, because if it’s breaking world records that is not going to happen, not unless they bring the high-tech suits back, and I don’t see that happening. For now, it is yet to be determined what the new benchmark may be.

There will be a couple of world records that I am sure will fall in London. The atmosphere alone is intense enough to help something like that happen. But the excitement will lie elsewhere.

The first race pitting Phelps and Lochte against each other is the 400 metres individual medley Saturday, an event that is likely to set off a domino effect for what happens to both of them at the Games.

I think Phelps is going to win it. I have to go with his experience: he’s won more medals than anybody, he’s swam in more events than anybody, he has more experience at handling the pressure of having the whole world looking at him. For that alone I would have to give him that slight advantage.

But I’d have a lot more to say about him not winning, as opposed to, “Well, it’s just another day at the office for Michael!”