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Swimmers must wait until Thursday to see if the pool at Conseco Fieldhouse is fast enough to produce records. But already the World Swimming Championships is record-breaking.

More than 600 athletes from nearly 100 countries will be entered in the seventh short-course meet, Indianapolis organizers announced Friday. Those figures will break the highs of 599 swimmers and 92 countries at Moscow in 2002.

Dale Neuburger, president of the Indiana Sports Corp., said the field will be the best in the history of the event, which debuted in 1993.

It could also be viewed as a preview of the 2008 Beijing Olympics rather than a curtain call for 2004 Athens Olympians.

The best example of that, he said, is China. Only the United States’ team of 48 swimmers exceeds China’s contingent.

“I will guarantee that of the 41 athletes China is bringing, they will be the bulk of their (2008) Olympic team,” Neuburger said. “They have made a conscious choice of bringing their future rather than their past.”

Although the October date capitalizes on momentum from the Olympics, the strain of continuing to train has contributed to some absences. Yet the short-course worlds have never been universal in an Olympic year.

Notable absentees from this meet — Australia’s Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett, and the Netherlands’ Pieter van den Hoogenband and Inge Bruijn — did not compete in 2000, either.

Neuburger said FINA, the world governing body for aquatic sports, initially was opposed to a post-Olympic world championship. But now, he said, swimmers try to stay in the limelight to enhance endorsement opportunities. Neuburger said the timing has been “a huge success” because of the Olympics.

“We could have talked about Michael Phelps for a long time without coming anywhere close to the name recognition he has by being on the cover of every major magazine in the United States,” Neuburger said.

Gold medals will be anything but certain for Phelps, who won eight Olympic medals.

He is better at long-course swimming — 50-meter pool — than in a 25-meter pool like the one assembled at the fieldhouse. Turns are especially important in a smaller pool.

“In my opinion, my turns aren’t very strong,” Phelps said in a phone interview during a pause in a Disney-sponsored tour of U.S. cities. “I wouldn’t say it puts me at a disadvantage. It’s something I could work on more and improve on in the future.”

Phelps’ opponents include Olympic bronze medalist Stephen Parry of Great Britain in the 200 butterfly and relay silver medalist Nicholas Sprenger of Australia in the 200 freestyle. In the 100 and 200 individual medley, Phelps meets U.S. teammate Ryan Lochte, who won silver in the 200 IM at Athens.

Most prominent among non-U.S. entries are the women.

They feature Ukraine’s Yana Klochkova, who won gold medals in the 200- and 400-meter individual medleys at both the Athens and Sydney Olympics.

Another star from Athens is Australia’s Libby Lenton, a triple medalist. She will be opposed in the 50 and 100 freestyles by Sweden’s Therese Alshammar, who owns world records at both distances.