"If you could excuse me," Nate Dusing said. "I'm not feeling too good right now. I'm a little woozy."

He was still out of breath and dripping from swimming the second leg of a heat for the U.S. 400-meter relay team. Dusing said he didn't think he swam well enough to make the finals later Sunday night, and he was right. He swam 100 meters in 49.01 seconds, third-best among his teammates in the heat. The coaches picked four other swimmers, including the indomitable Michael Phelps, and just like that, Nate Dusing's swimming career was done.

"We did what we came to do," Dusing said, "get our relay in there tonight with one of the top seeds. Now we'll hand it off to the other guys."

The U.S. team went on to win the bronze medal, which Dusing will add to his silver medal from the 800 freestyle relay in Sydney.

This is the way it works with Olympic swimming in the United States. The talent pool is so deep, the great swimmers carry the water for the very great. Gary Hall, a three-time Olympian and four-time gold medalist (including one in the 400 relay in 1996), also missed making the finals team.

This is an explanation for Dusing, not a consolation. When you close a show you've been performing ever since you can remember, you don't know what to do.

"Beechwood Swim Club," Dusing said. First swimming memory?

"I was 4 years old. It was opening day. There was no one else in the pool. It was cold and dreary. I just loved the water. I was a little pool rat, even then."

Swimming has taken him from Covington, Ky., to places most of us couldn't find on a map. It got him a free education at the University of Texas. It took him to Sydney in 2000 and Greece today. Swimming did more than define Dusing. It became him.

Working four years for 49 seconds in the pool is a wholly Olympian concept. The single-minded assault on one finite goal leaves no time for introspection or contemplation. You get up, eat breakfast and go swimming. Closing the pool can be a scary thought.

Dusing's teammate and fellow Cincinnatian, Dan Ketchum, is retiring after these Games. He's 22. Only Olympians and child actors retire at 22.

"It's surreal. But at the same time, I'm happy. I still love it," Dusing said. "I had a great time doing it. But I do kinda wonder what else is out there for me."

He was asked how many swimmers over the years were his equal in ability, but never got to the Olympics. Dusing figured 10, at least. What did they lack?

"You have to give up a lot of things to want to be at this level. It takes a special person to want to swim back and forth along a black line for so many hours, just for a chance to drop a couple tenths (of a second) and get to one of these (Olympic) meets. That's why it's such a great experience to be here. You know the kind of work that's behind it," Dusing said.

I asked him: "How much time, counting all the hours, do you figure you've spent in the pool?"

"Oh, years," he said. "Definitely. At least two years in the water."

Dusing dropped his head slightly. He grabbed the railing that separates swimmers from journalists behind the stands at the Olympic pool. The morning was already hot, nearly 90 degrees by 11. He was feeling it. And everything else.

"You know," Dusing said, "it's a great feeling to go out there with an American flag on your (swimming) cap and put on a good show. Hopefully the people back home got to watch it and are feeling the same amount of pride for our country that we do."

Twenty-one years is a lifetime for Nate Dusing. But at 25, his life is only beginning.

"I'm going to stay in Austin (Texas) for a little bit," he said. "Use my marketing degree ... Get a job, I guess."

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E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com