Greatness for breakfast. As China rubbed the sleep from its eyes and marched into the day, so Michael Phelps massacred a world record, tore apart a world-class field, took the next step towards becoming the greatest swimmer that jumped into a pool and won his first gold medal of the Olympic Games. Only seven to go, then.

But if he does nothing else at these Games, he has produced as fine a piece of sport as anyone will witness over the course of the next fortnight. He won the men’s 400 metres individual medley in 4min 3.84sec, knocking 1.41sec off the previous record — his own, obviously.

“To be honest, I didn’t feel so great,” he said. God help them all if he starts feeling good at these Games. He has seven more gold medals to try for. It’s a long way to go, but like the man who killed half the lawyers, it’s a bloody good start.

Hard to get better. The breaststroke is supposed to be his weakest of the four strokes, but these things are relative. It was in the breaststroke leg, the third, that he established his authority beyond doubt. Once he was at the turn with a couple of lengths of freestyle to go, he threshed the water behind him into Guinness and the only question left was: how far? The answer was a good couple of feet of clear water.

These morning finals play hell with your circadian rhythms. Heats in the evenings, finals in the morning: upside-down scheduling to suit American television, a triumph of showbiz over sporting excellence. “I was in the ready room, I didn’t feel so good, I got these, like, cold chills,” Phelps said afterwards. To bring yourself to a peak at the wrong time of day is a contradictory thing; and besides, you’re entitled to a few nerves when you set out to, like, write a new history of your sport.

Phelps has stripped himself down for action like a destroyer. A few days ago he was a laid-back, drawling guy with tousled hair and a beard: he resembled a louche poet. By the time he hit the pool he was clean-shaven, with a Marine’s buzz-cut. The process of preparation is itself a statement: everything must be sacrificed for speed.

It is an extraordinary thing he is trying to do. Mark Spitz, another American, won seven gold medals at the Olympic Games of 1972, and that was considered a mark that would not be beaten. Now, and in this kind of form, Phelps has a chance to go one better. Never mind this weaker-strokes stuff; yesterday Phelps demonstrated his mastery of every one of the swimmer’s four trades. He looked to have the talent to win gold medal in every stroke and that’s never been done, either, although it’s not on his agenda here.

“Afterwards, I looked up and saw President Bush giving me the thumbs-up and holding the American flag. That was pretty cool,” Phelps said. If so, it’s the first time in history that George W. Bush has been cool. Still, Bush loves it over here. For the first time in his life, he can savour the joys of being a wacky liberal.

Phelps is better at cool than Bush, but he was “trembly lipped” on the podium. There is a huge surge of relief now that this, the great first step, has been taken. With this first victory, Phelps can see that the ludicrous task he has set himself is doable. It is within his compass. If he can swim in such a way at the first time of asking, everything is possible.

But then a touch of farce as the tape malfunctioned in the final frenzies of the national anthem, and the welcome relief of laughter. But after that it was back to business. He can feel that destiny is within his grasp. He knew that with half a length and more still to go, when he found himself in a strange yet familiar territory.

“Coming off the last wall, I had the same feeling as I did in Athens,” he said. At the 2004 Olympic Games, he tried for eight golds and finished with six and two bronzes. “I had 25, 50 metres to go and I sort of smiled. The first one was there,” he said. That’s the spooky thing about the proceedings of the day. This was as a great a sporting performance as you could wish to see and yet it was nothing more than a first step. For most, it would be the crowning achievement of a lifetime, for Phelps it’s a jumping-off point.

Yesterday Phelps changed the possibilities of his sport and all he has done is to get the first thing out of the way. “Now I have to pretend it never happened,” he said. One of the greatest sporting performances of all time and it must at once be set aside. Astonishing. And how do you prepare for all that lies ahead? “Eat, sleep and swim.” What else is there?

Father to his son's great achievements

News of the death of Peter Coe has had me thinking back over the extraordinary relationship between Coe and his son, Seb, now Lord Coe. Coaching Seb to the gold medal in the 1,500 metres at the Olympic Games of 1980 was perhaps the lesser of the two great achievements they shared. The second was the letting-go, as Seb won his second 1,500 metres gold medal at the Games of 1984 more or less on his own.

I have always relished the story of how Seb began his recovery from his traumatic disappointment in the the 800 metres in 1980, a race he should have won. He blew it by failing to assert himself in the early stages. Seb was sitting in the post-medal presser (he had, at least, got silver) looking as if his pet rabbit has just died.

Peter, mooching about at the back, finally went up to his son and murmured into his ear: “You ran like a c***.” This story is obviously too good to be true, but I asked Seb about it and he confirmed every word. “It was the best thing he could possibly have said. All at once, I knew exactly why I had lost and was ready to set about trying to put it right in the next one.” And that time, he ran like a god.

Distortion of bodysuits

Michael Phelps swam his way to victory yesterday in a Speedo LZR Racer. I am not entirely happy about this, I have to say. I always thought that the main point of swimming was to strip everything down to bodies, each competitor as near naked as as is permitted by prevailing standards of decency.

There were, indeed, stories about East German swimmers setting unofficial world records naked as that regime continued its mad search for sporting perfection. But these new hi-tech suits are more hydrodynamically efficient than skin and they help the swimmers to go faster.

This seems to be damaging to the purity of a sport whose beauty lies in its simplicity. It seems absurd that swimming, the most naked of sports, should wake up and find itself an equipment sport.

These suits constitute an advantage that is not available to all. Swimming has taken a wrong turning. Dope on a hanger, the purists say.