American phenom Michael Phelps swam into the semifinal at the men's 200m individual medley here on Wednesday evening, a step closer to his 6th gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, and 12th all Games.

Phelps finished, in an apparent effort to reserve his energy, the fourth in the heats at 1:58.65, half second slower than his teammate Ryan Lochte who raced the first and 3.85 seconds than the world record he created at home on July 4, 2008.

"It was fine, that's all I wanted to do. I'm trying to conserve everything for the final. I'm trying to get a spot for tomorrow, it's a lane who cares", Phelps said after the race.

With two more Olympic titles to his name on Wednesday morning, the 23-year-old lanky American has become the most decorated Olympian of all time: five golds in Beijing, 11 Olympic golds altogether, and over halfway to his march to break the seven-gold mark set by his predecessor Mark Spitz in 1972.

"I am trying to get through every race. It is a lot of racing and it's not easy. I'm just trying to take one race at a time. The next few ones are pretty important", Phelps said.

Laszlo Cseh, the Hungarian ace swimmer who already bagged two silvers at the Games, finished the second at 1:58. 29.

Besides the 200m IM, Lochte also managed to top the heats for men's 200m backstroke at 1:56.29, with his teammate Aaron Peirsol followed by only 0.06 second.

"If he (Phelps) gets eight medals it's amazing. If he doesn't it means somewhere along I did something, hopefully I can do that", Lochte said.

On the women's side, Chinese swimmer Pang Jiaying, who won China an unexpected bronze medal in women's 200m freestyle final in the morning, advanced into the semifinal at 54.01, 0.41 second slower than the Finnish Hanna-Maria Seppala who topped the heats.

Pang's teammate Zhu Yingwen, tied her score with Zhu's as she also qualified to the next phase. Veterans such as German swimmer Britta Steffen and Natalie Coughlin from the United States also booked seats for the semifinal.

Chinese women's relay team earned itself a position in the final, clocking at 7:53.77, 3.40 seconds slower than France, 1.34 the United States, and 0.39 Italy. They are expected to race again in Thursday morning's final.

Source:Xinhua