Phelps' 100-meter butterfly win "clear and final"

BEIJING — It's the most watched replay in sports today.

Officials of FINA, swimming's governing body, said they could understand why Serbia filed a protest after the incredible 100-meter butterfly finish Saturday morning that gave the gold medal to Michael Phelps by a fingertip.

But after viewing several replays of the finish, FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu said "the result is clear and final. It's evident from the replays that it was an issue of stroking."

In other words, as Milorad Cavic desperately reached for the wall at the end of his stroke, Michael Phelps, in midstroke, came over the top and hit the wall first.

Marculescu, of Sweden, said rules do not allow for individual-nation officials to enter the video room when a protest is being reviewed. But FINA officials felt strongly that they did not want Serbian officials "going to bed" wondering if the decision was correct. So they invited Serbian officials to look at the replay.

"The Serbian team, they were very satisfied," Marculescu said. "They agreed with the conclusion by the referee."

"He's the greatest we have," Marculescu said of Phelps, also referring to him as "extraterrestrial. He was going to win it, anyway."

USA Swimming's Mark Schubert, the team's head coach, said FINA confirmed that the timing and video systems were in perfect working order. They even broke down the video replay frames to a 10,000th of a second. Phelps won by one-hundredth of a second.

But video does not determine winners in swimming. It can be used to determine when there is a protest. Touchpads, the plastic sensors on the wall, are the determining factor down to a hundredth of a second.

Even Phelps, like the rest of the crowd, remained in suspense until the times flashed up on the scoreboard.

"I had to take my goggles off first to make sure the one was next to my name," Phelps said.

Cavic still won the first medal for Serbia in swimming.

The ultra-confident Cavic, who was born in Anaheim and swam for the Cal Golden Bears, has Serbian and U.S. passports.

Going into the race, some experts thought he might defeat Phelps, who had set a world record in each of his six previous gold medal performances.

"I think Mike can beat Michael," U.S. swimmer Gary Hall Jr. wrote in a blog posting on latimes.com Friday. "An upset would be the upset of all upsets, it's true, but I think Mike can beat Michael."

Cavic had worked extraordinarily hard over the past year, Hall wrote.

"He endured taunt and torment from his teammates, myself included, for being overzealous with his training," Hall wrote. "We caught him sneaking in extra workouts. Can you imagine? We were training six to eight hours a day, six days a week, and he's got the gall, and energy, to do an extra? Without telling anyone about it?"

The debate over this race will linger for years. Cavic was asked if Phelps was, indeed, the gold-medal winner.

Said Cavic: "Is Michael Phelps the gold-medal winner? If we got to do this again, I would win it."

A few hours after the race, Cavic was up and running on his own official Web site.

He said he was not behind the protest of the race, that it came from the Serbian Olympic Committee:

"Yes, as you all saw, I almost won the gold, and if you ask me, the clock does not lie. I had nothing to do with this filing, and neither did my coach Mike Bottom. ... I've accepted defeat, and there's nothing wrong with losing to the greatest swimmer there has ever been."

Dallas Morning News and Los Angeles Times contributed to this article.