My first memory of Michael Phelps was his swim at the 2000
Sydney games. I was 17-years-old at the time and just in the beginning of the
stage of my own swimming career that could be called serious. I had heard of
Phelps before Sydney, but just whispers and rumors about a teenage phenomenon
in Baltimore. Watching him compete in Australia at age 15 was inspirational to
a whole generation. I remember acknowledging that he had made the finals and
how great an accomplishment that was. It was impossible to watch and not think
about what the future held for this boy.
2004 US Swimming Olympic Trials
As the 2004 Olympic Trials approached, I eagerly anticipated
Phelps’ swims, but also the 200m breaststroke, in which my good friend and
college roommate (Scott Usher) was competing in. At the time, my parents were
still on dial-up and so I couldn’t watch the live stream from Long Beach. The
internet was just fast enough to take advantage of Omega’s live timing page.
Swimmers were represented by a bar moving back and forth across the screen in
their respective lane. The bar didn’t move smoothly, rather it updated every
few seconds and the line would jump ahead to wherever that swimmer was in the
50-meter-long pool.
Usher had great prelim swims and he had a good lane for the
final that night. He was off to a good start, but lagged a little in the middle
100m as some veterans edged closer to him, but I knew Usher’s last 50m was
exceptional and so I waited and waited, staring at the bar, cursing dial-up.
When the race finished there was a delay before the final splits came up and
one could see how each swimmer finished. It was much different from today when
you can instantly see who finished in medal positions as graphics unfold in
each lane of the competitors who finished in medal positions. The graphics will
even tell you whether or not those swimmers set a new Olympic record (OR) or a
world record (WR).
I was still waiting. Finally, I saw the splits. Usher had
the fastest last 50m of the entire field, including Brendan Hansen, who had
finished first and, in the process, also set the WR (2:09.04). Usher clocked a
2:10.90, good enough for second and a spot on the Olympic team. The next
fastest swimmer swam a 2:13.82. To say I did a double take is an
understatement. I confirmed the results, then reconfirmed, then again. And then
I screamed. I jumped. I ran out of the room. One of my best friends had just
become an Olympian. I called our coach at the time, who was on deck in Long
Beach, and I spoke with Usher just minutes after his race. He was ecstatic, to
say the least, and I couldn’t believe what I just saw over amazingly slow
dial-up.
My next realization was that Usher was going to meet Michael
Phelps, train with him, and go to an Olympic games with him. That this was what
I thought about second to Usher actually making the team is testament to how
big of a deal Phelps had already become. He hadn’t won a thing yet on
swimming’s grandest stage, but the swimming world knew he was on the cusp of a
medal-winning Olympic career due to amazing appearances at world championship
meets such as Worlds 2003 in Barcelona, in which he crushed the field in the
200 IM, beating Ian Thorpe, and breaking the WR. He was 18-years-old at the
time.
The Run-up to Athens
Leading up to the Athens games the swimming world was abuzz.
With Phelps swimming the 200m free he would encounter two giants of the
swimming world, Pieter van den Hoogenband, the legendary Dutch sprinter who is
the only male swimmer to final in the 100m free in four consecutive Olympics,
and, of course, Ian Thorpe, the Australian phenomenon who had been a star since
he was 15-years-old. The showdown was set.
However, the American media had a different focus. They were
obsessed with the magical number of Phelps’ swims at the Athens games: 8. A
possible eight gold medals meant Phelps had the opportunity to surpass Mark
Spitz and become the most decorated Olympian (from one Olympics) of all time.
Given Phelps meet lineup for Athens, which included the aforementioned 200m
free, a race Phelps was insistent upon swimming, eight gold medals was out of
the question for anyone who knew anything about swimming. But, since the people
at NBC don’t know much about swimming, besides Rowdy Gaines, this wasn’t
discussed much. Instead the focus was on Phelps tying and possibly breaking
Spitz’s record. It is safe to say that NBC had genuine interest in Phelps’
promising career, but they also ran with the seven-or-eight-gold-medals story
in hopes that it would pique interest in the games and in turn drive up
advertising revenue and ratings. All this despite the facts that Phelps was 19
at the time and up against two veterans in the 200m free who were not yet ready
to relinquish their hold on the podium.
Athens 2004
The unrealistic expectations aside, Phelps’ performance in
Athens was astonishing and a joy to watch. He won gold in four individual
events. In the 100m butterfly, Phelps ran down teammate Ian Crocker in the last
five meters, setting the tone for Phelps’ future 100m butterfly races. The 200m
butterfly wasn’t as close. Phelps won by an arm length. In the 200m and the
400m individual medleys (IMs), it wasn’t close and Phelps broke the OR in the
200m IM and the WR in the 400m IM. He was also a member of the 4x200m free
relay team and the 4x100m medley relay team, both of which took gold. In the
4x100m free relay, Phelps and his teammates finished third, which wasn’t a bad
performance, but it meant eight gold medals was out of the question. This
affected NBC more than Phelps.
And in what was deemed “the race of the century” by the
swimming world, Phelps finished third to van den Hoogenband and Thorpe, but
Phelps was pleased with the finish despite NBC’s displeasure that the poster
boy of their Olympic coverage had to settle for a possible six gold medals
instead of seven. After the 200m free, Phelps said, “How can I be disappointed?
I swam in a field with the two fastest freestylers of all time.”
Phelps had tied another of Spitz’s lesser known records by
winning four individual events at the same Olympics, last achieved by the
mustachioed man in the 1972 Munich games. Phelps left his first Olympic games
with six gold medals and two bronze medals. Although he may not have had his
sights set on eight gold medals, Athens made it evident that for him to achieve
eight golds in one games was possible, but it also hinged on a little luck and
incredible performances by his relay teammates. In the media, Phelps’
performance was reported as a huge success, but also suggested by some that
Athens was a bit of a letdown for Phelps. But he was 19 at the time and was
certainly not at his peak yet. When the games ended, I was in awe of what he
had done and already excited for Beijing, knowing that if anyone had the chance
of tying and then beating Spitz’s record, it was Phelps and his one shot to do
it was Beijing in 2008.
My Senior Year and Olympian Roommate
In August 2004, I arrived in Laramie for my senior year at
the University of Wyoming and my last year of competitive swimming. My other
roommate and I were awaiting Usher’s return to Wyoming. In what was truly the
biggest stage he had competed on so far, Usher finished seventh in the 200m
breaststroke in Athens. He couldn’t match the speed of his Long Beach
performance, which would stand as the fourth fastest time in the world in 2004,
but he was an Olympian and he had final-ed in the biggest swim meet there is.
To see him again and to know the things he had experienced and the people he
had met was a weird moment. I knew such an experience would surely change a
person, but I wasn’t immediately aware of how it changed Usher. He brought
gifts home for his two roommates. I received a few of his Olympic caps with the
flag on them and ‘USHER’ displayed in bold lettering under the flag. He also
gave me a vest that was worn by a German track athlete. He had traded for it. I
love this vest and still wear it sometimes. But the coolest thing he brought home
wasn’t for his roommates, but it was sort of for the apartment. He took it out
and laid it out on the floor and carefully unfolded it. In and among the
Olympic rings on this flag were the signatures of every USA swimmer from the
2004 Athens Olympics. Usher put it up on a wall in our living room. You
couldn’t get better interior decorating. I pointed to Phelps’ signature in
disbelief, still. So many greats had signed that flag. In one of the pictures Usher
showed us, he stood with Phelps, just the two of them after a workout. Again,
this was all amazing and the dominant though was that Usher was a teammate of
Phelps, who you could argue was already one of the most successful Olympians of
all time following the 2004 games.
The Run-up to Beijing
For the next four years Usher would travel all around the
world and compete in the breaststroke events and swim on medley relays with
Phelps. During this time it was widely reported that Phelps was training harder
than ever and he was once again splashed across TV screens in Olympic promos
and featured in every major magazine and newspaper in the run-up to the 2008
Olympic trials in Omaha, Nebraska, Usher’s backyard.
Usher too was going for another Olympic games. This time he
had the home pool advantage and I was very confident in his chances. I followed
the meet intently and between Phelps’ swims in six individual events, the race
I paid the most attention too was the 200m breaststroke. In this event only the
top two finishers make the Olympic team. Third place is the worst finish
imaginable then. That’s precisely the spot Usher finished in. Later that summer
he wound up swimming in that summer’s US Open, in which no one really wants to
end up swimming in during Olympic years because it means you haven’t made the
team. But in Usher’s case it was an opportunity to swim faster and to get a PR.
He did exactly that; swimming a 2:10.67 and setting the US Open meet record in
the process. I will never know the pain of finishing third at Olympic trials,
but I have to think that the US Open swim was a bit of a personal redemption
for Usher and a good way to go out.
I had a feeling that summer that Usher’s swimming career was
coming to an end. I was disappointed I would no longer be able to see a friend
in the water when I caught the next big international meet on TV. But
collegiate swimming had made me aware of the commitment necessary to stay in
peak performance. When all those hours and days committed to swimming fast
don’t pay off in exactly the way you want them to, it is a trial to keep on
training. And there comes a time when the reward is no longer the medal, but
the retirement from the sport and a new freedom to move on with a life
unencumbered by training six hours or more a day. Usher, I believe, had reached
that point.
At the opposite end of the spectrum was Phelps, who was
bigger and faster than ever before. His goals, which he would only share with
his coach, Bob Bowman, were assumed to include ‘win eight gold medals in
Beijing,’ but when asked about that following his swims at the 2008 Olympic
trials, Phelps merely said he wants to swim as fast as possible and that he has
a month left to train for Beijing. He always has let his swimming do the
talking. I appreciate this about Phelps. So many times the media tried to get
him to talk about Spitz’s record and what Phelps thought of his chances at
breaking it and so many times Phelps refused to give them what they wanted. Yet
you knew every time he was training for Beijing that was in the back of his
mind. He wanted to do something no swimmer had ever done before. He wanted to
be the first. One can connect the dots.
Beijing 2008
Phelps started his Beijing games with an expected win in the
400m IM and a new WR. He also called it his last 400m IM in competition. As an
aside, I think anyone who swims the 400m IM wants it to be their last one. As a
sprinter, I am particularly afraid of this event. It is 100m of each stroke,
starting with butterfly, then backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. A 100m
butterfly is a difficult race, but to then face 300m afterward…No wonder Phelps
wanted it be his last 400m IM and as we would find out four years later, it
probably should have been. Nevertheless, it was a great opening for Phelps and
it provided the necessary good vibes he would need to surpass Spitz, let alone
tie him.
Phelps’ second performance was leading off the 4x100m free
relay. Phelps’ lead off set a new American record in the 100m free. Behind to
the French by a body length, anchor swimmer Jason Lezak (32-years-old at the
time) did more than any other person throughout the Beijing games to keep
Phelps on track. Lezak came back on Alain Bernard within the last five meters
to beat the French and finish first. It was the fastest 100m split in history
and the top five finishers in that race broke the old WR. Lezak’s swim was
instantly legendary and its significance only grew as Phelps’ busy swim program
continued. I watched it live and I was recording it as well. After watching it
four or five times that night I sighed, turned the TV off, and went to bed
saying amazing over and over again, and thinking it couldn’t get any closer for
Phelps.
The next day’s coverage included the necessary recap of the
historic 4x100m free relay. NBC played the last five meters of the race and the
ensuing celebration, showing Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale (I would later meet
Weber-Gale at a swim practice at UW-Milwaukee as he trained with the team a few
times while in town), and Cullen Jones. But then it was back to business in the
200m freestyle, in which Phelps set another OR and WR, edging out Park Tae-Hwan
of South Korea, to win his ninth gold medal.
The 200m butterfly was the next major swim. While I remember
never being in doubt about who would win, the proximity of the rest of the
swimmers to Phelps was unsettling. He should have been further ahead. When he
finished the race, he quickly tore off his goggles, a sure sign that something
had gone wrong with them. By the 100m mark, his goggles had filled up with
water, but he still managed the win. With this gold, Phelps reached ten Olympic
gold medals in his career, something no one had done in this modern Olympic
era. Among other firsts achieved in this race, Phelps became the first swimmer
to successfully defend an Olympic butterfly title and the first to win three
individual Olympic gold medals in butterfly.
Later the same night, Phelps won another gold in leading off
the 4x200m free relay.
Phelps’ 100m butterfly final was next. Once again using what
one of his opponents said about him as fuel, Phelps touched the wall first.
This time it was the Serbian-American swimmer, Milorad Cavic, who had said
about Phelps, “It’d be good for him if he loses.” If Phelps wins seven golds
and loses “the eigth to ‘some guy,’ I’d like to be that guy.” Cavic led the
entire race until the wall, where Cavic glided to the touchpad with his head
up, slowing his forward movement. Phelps’ finish was no better, but instead of
gliding to the wall he took one gimpy stroke and rammed his hands into the
wall. It was an impossible finish mostly because it was such a trick on the
eye. There are a lot of swim races that are determined by .01, but for it to
happen this way at this point was incredible. I just remember shaking my head,
thinking Phelps had God on his side or something. After this race, I knew he
was going to get his eighth gold of the Beijing games. It was clear that this
was his destiny.
Serbia did file a protest and timing officials reviewed the
photographs of the finish. In what is the most famous and recognizable photo
among swimming fans, one can see Phelps’ fingers bent back due to touching the
pad, but Cavic’s fingers are still stretched out, a millimeter or less from the
pad. It is believed, by some, that the real difference between the two swimmers
was a few thousandths of a second. An Omega official even publicly stated that
it’s possible that Cavic was the first to touch the pad, but because the pad
naturally requires a certain amount of pressure to stop the time, it registered
Phelps as first because he was the first to apply the appropriate amount of
pressure. This may or may not be the case, but I think the photos of the finish
clearly show Phelps was victorious.
Phelps’ reaction to the 100m butterfly win will always be
with me. He raised an arm showing a number one with his hand and then he
slapped the water with both hands letting out this primal yell, which was the
epitome of pure emotion, an explosion of it, and it was the moment I feel that
Phelps knew he was going to go get eight gold medals in Beijing.
Not that Phelps’ last Beijing swim was boring, it just
couldn’t have lived up to the 4x100m free relay or the 100m fly. However, in
Phelps’ leg (the butterfly) he set the record split at 50.1 seconds, moving
from third to first as Lezak once again went into the water to anchor the US
team and win gold. Afterward, Phelps remained humble and it seemed like all he
wanted to do was get away and be with this family. He did exactly that, parting
the sea of photographers in order to hug his mom and sisters. They were all
smiling and crying. I was too. I had never felt so proud of and happy for an
athlete and a sport.
The Run-up to London
After the Olympics, Phelps was all over the place, including
a Sports Illustrated cover similar to Spitz’s famous SI cover, just that Phelps
had eight golds hanging around his neck. It was epic and a must-buy magazine
for me.
The first major news story about Phelps in the post-Beijing
era was that he took a hit from a bong. It was no big deal and no different
than if Phelps had gone out and had ten beers. No one would have made a story
about that even though it is the same kind of behavior. The man just proved to
the world he is the greatest Olympian of all time. Taking a hit off a bong
isn’t going to change that for anyone with a true and deep appreciation for
what Phelps had done. Apparently, Kellogg is not in this category, as they
promptly dropped sponsorship of Phelps.
During the interregnum, so to speak, Phelps kept earning
medals at major international swimming competitions. Only a few of them were of
a different color because Ryan Lochte started winning the 200m IM and the 400m
IM, traditionally Phelps’ territory. Thus began the media’s obsession with
Lochte and their push to make him the poster boy of the London 2012 games.
London 2012
After watching the 400m IM in the opening night of swimming
at London I was a little concerned. I feel like Phelps should have stayed away
from the event like he said he would. He wasn’t training specifically for it
and it is the toughest one you can swim. But I was hopeful he would turn things
around. It is a long week of swimming and Phelps’ best events were ahead of
him. The worst part about Phelps finishing fourth and Lochte first were the
headlines. ESPN’s “The torch has been passed,” was one of the worst offenders.
I am sorry ESPN, what do you know about athletes who compete in Olympic sports?
Oh, that’s right, nothing. ESPN and other media outlets jumped the gun on that
one.
A silver in the 4x100m free relay wasn’t that bad at all and
it put Phelps in a position to become the most decorated Olympian of all time
on the next day of competition. On that day he finished second in the 200m
butterfly and first in the 4x200m free relay. Phelps absolutely should have won
the 200m fly, but he fell victim to the same poor finish of Cavic’s from four
years earlier. But he seemed to brush that off with his first gold in London
and I knew Phelps was going to go out strong. He wouldn’t be finishing his
career with a flurry of silver and bronze medals. No sir.
Two days later, he beat Lochte in the 200m IM. Lochte had a
busy night with this final and before it the final of the 200m backstroke.
Lochte, if he were the new king of
swimming, would have had to win at least one of these races. He didn’t. And on
top of that, he lost one to Phelps, the supposed second best swimmer in the
world. With the 200m IM victory, Phelps became the first swimmer ever to win
the same event at three consecutive Olympics. Another first. The next night in
the 100m fly, he did it again. He is the only swimmer to win the same two
events in three consecutive Olympics. Another first.
In Phelps’ last swim ever, he owned the 100m fly leg of the
4x100m medley relay, bringing the medal tally to 22, 18 of them gold. For the
first time I saw Phelps on the edge of bursting into tears and it came at the
end of the post-race interview with NBC’s Andrea Kremer. As he turned away you
could see him trying so hard to keep the emotion in. It was a rare expression
from Phelps as he walked away from an Olympic pool for the last time, a pool he
was king of, for as long as he called it home.
The Post-Phelps Era
The state of US swimming couldn’t be better after losing the
greatest swimmer of all time to retirement. Lochte wants to swim in Rio. Missy
Franklin is a 17-year-old superstar who is so versatile and young that she
could become the most decorated female Olympian of all time. Two Olympics from
now, Franklin will still only be 25-years-old. And then there is Katie Ledecky,
a 15-year-old…a 15-year-old, who crushed the field in the women’s 800m
freestyle.
Phelps inspired all three of these swimmers and he will
inspire countless more. He could say he is a living legend. He could say he is
the greatest athlete and Olympian of all time. And he would be justified in
doing so. But, like always, he will let his swimming do the talking.
