How Phelps Made Swimming History
On Aug. 10, a few hours after Michael Phelps won his first gold medal and set his first world record in Beijing, he called his mom. "It seemed quite unusual," Debbie Phelps, who was traveling back to her hotel with daughters Hillary and Whitney after watching Michael's race, told TIME. "He just wanted to hear our voices. I think it was important for him to talk to his mom and sisters at that time."
They chatted — he asked about their trip to China — and Debbie, fully aware of Michael's challenging program to come, worried about whether her boy had tired himself out by swimming so fast so early. "I don't know why I asked; he knows what he needs to do to conserve his energy," she said.
They didn't hear from him again until after the 200-m freestyle on Aug. 12. Debbie missed his first call because her phone was buried in her bag. Phelps texted her, letting her know he was trying to reach them. "We were giving him support, letting him know how proud we were and that we stand behind him whatever the outcome might be," said Debbie. Sometimes, apparently, even Olympians just need their mother.
And the outcome, it turned out, was record-breaking: Today, Phelps made Olympic history by winning his eighth gold medal at these Games and becoming the greatest Olympic athlete ever. With a 50.15-sec. butterfly leg in the 4 x 100-m medley relay, Phelps, along with the U.S. team, set a new world record — and Phelps set a new bar for Olympic athletes to clear.
Just minutes earlier, 41-year-old Dara Torres, the oldest swimmer ever to compete in the Olympics, lapped the second-fastest time of the year in the 50-m freestyle and earned a silver medal, 0.01 sec. behind the winner. Along with her two other silver medals in relay races, her total Olympic haul is an impressive 12, just four shy of Phelps' 16.
Not a bad day for swimming history — and no one knows that better than the history makers. "For this to happen, everything had to fall into perfect place," Phelps said. "If we had to do this again, I don't know if it would happen exactly the way we wanted it to."
The men's relay closed out what will become one of the most memorable Games in swimming, with the U.S. leading the Water Cube medal count at 31, 12 of them gold — better than Athens' collection of 28, though not quite up to the horde of 43 that Mark Spitz's team amassed in 1972. But none of the athletes in the pool, American or otherwise, stood a chance of eclipsing Phelps. Taehwan Park of Korea and Kosuke Kitajima of Japan both snared Olympic titles and set a new standard for Asian swimmers at the élite level, but no other Olympian could come close to the frenzy that Phelps generated in the Water Cube, luring luminaries from two Presidents (George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush) to LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, who attended not just one but several of Phelps' races in Beijing.
"I am so blessed, so privileged to be here to watch him swim live," said Inge de Bruijn of the Netherlands. "He made me cry — tears of joy." And this from a two-time Olympic champion and Olympic record holder.
For Debbie, the feat is especially momentous. When Michael was in grade school, a teacher told her that her son would never be successful because he couldn't focus in the classroom. It turned out that he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and while it made concentrating in class difficult, racing in the pool was a different story. "I thought maybe he's not as focused in the schoolhouse, but I saw a love and passion for swimming in him at a young age," said Debbie, who works as an educator and school principal. "He could be there for hours during a swim meet."
That singular determination was obvious at the Water Cube this week. In race after race, setting record after record, Phelps kept his body and mind trained on a set of goals that only he and coach Bob Bowman were privy to for these Games. While he still won't reveal the specifics, he did admit that he wrote them down — the first time he has documented his mission at a meet — and that "it all happened this week."
When you're talented enough to break world records nearly every time you race, and do it not just once or twice but eight times in a single meet, with the entire world watching, then half your battle is not against the swimmers in the other lanes but against your own demons, the ones that creep up when you hear your name announced over the loudspeaker or when you take your position on the blocks, ready to plunge into the water.
And nobody knows that better than Bowman. Having coached Phelps since he was 11, Bowman was the first to recognize the boy's talent, and he laid out a detailed plan to Phelps' surprised parents for making their son an Olympic champion. In the years since, Bowman, a psychology major, has become a master manipulator of Phelps, knowing just what buttons to push to propel his swimmer to another world record.
Take Saturday, for example. Prior to the 100-m butterfly event, Bowman thought the race might be close and figured Phelps could use an extra boost. So he passed along a piece of information that was news to Phelps: that his closest rival in the 100-m butterfly, Serbian Milorad Cavic, had told the media that he thought Phelps losing the race would be good for swimming. The Spitz record of seven golds in a single Games is a hallowed one, and one that has stood for 36 years — so it's understandable that some swimmers are loath to see it broken. Plus, Cavic figured, leaving that eighth gold dangling for the next Games would keep people interested in swimming.
Not the smartest move, Cavic. Phelps, notorious for feeding off doubters and critics of his feats and fame, said he "got excited" by those comments, and managed to drive to the wall 0.01 sec. ahead of the Serb. Enough said.
If the nine days of competition were hard on Phelps, they might have been even harder on his teammates, overshadowed by "the Quest" and yet, in three relay races, a crucial part of Phelps' historic effort. "Of course we are all paying attention to what is going on," said Aaron Peirsol, who swam the backstroke leg of the relay. "But by no means does one person on the team take precedence over any other during a meet like this." Easy to say but harder to believe when Phelps is ushered off to his own press conferences and when nearly all of the questions posed to each swimmer who wins a medal revolve around Phelps.
As for the United Nations of athletes filling the stands in the Water Cube today, most were there to watch one man and one man only. "I think 90% of the swimmers, when they are done with their event, just come here to watch Michael Phelps," said Sandeep Sejwal, a breaststroke swimmer from India. "He deserves all the attention he gets," said Genaro Prono, another breaststroke swimmer, from Paraguay. "Because everything that he does is also better for us."
Andrew Lauterstein, the Australian butterfly specialist who finished third to Phelps on Saturday, recognized the significance of being part not just of swimming but of sports history while he was on the medals stand with Phelps. "I was saying to myself, 'All right, Andrew, this is pretty special, so look around and try to remember this moment standing next to the world's greatest swimmer, someone who is trying to re-create history,' " he said. He wasn't the only medalist who was awestruck. "I feel privileged to be in an era with such a great swimmer," said Lauterstein's teammate Leisel Jones, the breaststroke gold medalist. "I couldn't care less about my swims; winning eight gold medals is pretty impressive."
So he impresses the world's top swimmers, but what impresses the world's top swimmer the most? All Phelps could talk about after his historic achievement was the fact that two of his races were broadcast live, at a baseball stadium and in a football arena, back home. "I want to raise the bar for the sport of swimming as high as it can get in the U.S.," he said. "We've come a long way; I heard that in Ravens stadium [in Baltimore, Phelps' hometown], they were watching the 400 medley relay live with 70,000 people. I heard that at the Cincinnati Reds game yesterday, they showed the 100 fly live. I heard there was an announcement at Yankee Stadium. People all over the place are saying that if you go out to eat and the TV is on, swimming is on the TV. Four years ago, there was no way that would ever happen. I think the sport of swimming can go even farther."
But maybe only if Phelps stays in the water, which he says he will, at least through the London Games in 2012. While he is eager to try out a new swimming program that might feature more of the marquee events like sprints, he won't make any decisions about that until he comes back from a long vacation. "When we train every day, and sometimes we do sets or workouts we don't like, Bob says it's putting money in the bank, and at the end of the year we'll be able to withdraw," said Phelps. "I guess we put a lot of money in the bank over the last four years, and we withdrew pretty much every penny. So after Bob and I both take a little break, it'll be time to start re-depositing."
London would be Phelps' third Games, a mere trifle compared with teammate Dara Torres' fifth trip under the rings. Torres, who is now the second-fastest woman in the world in the 50-m free, continued to prove that age is no limit, missing the gold by the same tiny margin with which Phelps won the 100-m butterfly. "That was awesome," said de Bruijn, of Torres' race. "I've got so much respect for her. She was one of my biggest rivals when I was still swimming. She quit for many years, she had a baby, and then to come back — she is a role model for a lot of swimmers, especially older swimmers."
The years have done nothing to dampen Torres' aggressive spirit. As remarkable as her finish was, she was haunted by how close she came to winning gold, which would have been her first individual Olympic title. "I am very competitive, and I hate to lose," she said. "I told my coach it's hard for me to understand I swam the perfect race and lost by 0.01 sec. He said, 'Look, you went into the Olympics fifth in the world, and now you've got a silver medal.' " Three of them, actually, which is certain to impress her 2-year-old daughter Tessa, back home. "After 2000, I didn't have anything to go home to, but now I have my daughter to go home to. I get home on Tuesday, and I'm taking my daughter to school on Thursday, so I've got a list of school supplies I have to get," said Torres, back in mom mode after her Olympic feat.
Debbie Phelps is in mom mode too. "I tried to put one word to these past nine days, and there's just not one word that would be characteristic of what Michael just did," she said. "Every aspect of watching him compete, perform as an athlete, and carry himself as a young man is heartwarming as a mother." It's a pretty remarkable example for those of us outside the family as well.
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