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Home > Jeff Schultz > Archives > 2008 > August > 12
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Phelps is human after all
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Beijing — After winning his third gold medal and continuing to make the world’s other top swimmers look like Labradors wearing water wings, Michael Phelps was nice enough to share his training secrets with the assembled masses.
“I’m eating plenty of pasta and pizza,” he said. “I’m eating a lot of carbs. And I’m sleeping as much as I can.”
Now, I’m not sure if this was merely a transparent attempt to procure an endorsement deal with Pizza Hut, or if Phelps was just schmoozing the media, which, by the way, really takes only pizza and pasta. But it was comforting to learn he has something in common with the rest of humanity, even if every lap in these Olympics seems to scream otherwise.
Phelps is not just winning. As teammate Aaron Peirsol said, “He’s absolutely destroying everything.”
His first five races have resulted in five gold medals and five world records.
There are similar levels of dominance. But they require a food chain.
Phelps arrived at the Beijing pool Wednesday morning with three gold medals. He left with five. The latest two: The 200-meter butterfly, in which he swam to a record 1:52.03 despite his goggles filling up with water.
“I couldn’t see anything for the last 100,” he said. “It just kept getting worse and worse, and I was having trouble seeing the walls to be honest.”
He still touched the wall ahead of Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh. Maybe next time, somebody can tie an anchor to his leg.
Phelps added his fifth gold when he swam the first leg — and the fastest leg — of the 4x200 relay. The U.S. team’s winning time was 6:58.56. Second place is still swimming.
It’s not surprising Phelps could overcome that whole goggle thing. “One thing that separates Michael is the way he swims even when he doesn’t feel well,” his coach, Bob Bowman, said. “Michael kind of performs independently of his feelings. It gets back to knowing exactly what he wants to accomplish. He’s able to compartmentalize what’s important. It goes back to that quote, ‘Winning means: what’s important now.’ I think Michael is very good at knowing what’s important now.”
You know what Michael is? Michael is a freak.
In the 400 individual medley, possibly his toughest individual event, he won by over two seconds. In the 4x100 freestyle relay, he got a little help from teammate Jason Lezak, who swam the final 50 like Evinrude was stamped on his rump. The third gold: another world record in the 200 freestyle.
The question isn’t whether he’ll win but whether the other seven swimmers show up on the blocks holding pizza boxes.
He is now the winningest Olympian ever: 11 gold medals, 13 overall. He didn’t ever realize he was approaching an Olympic record shared by Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz and others the other day until being told by Bowman. But things tend to blur after 25 world records in individual Olympic events.
Some athletes are great because of natural ability and work ethic. Some become otherworldly when they find uncommon ways to motivate themselves. He denounced reporters who claim he’s circled Spitz’s record eight golds on his to-do list. But he is the one who said four years ago that he wanted to change swimming.
He admitted that he still uses the third-place finish (slacker) in Athens four years ago as motivation in the 200 free. And admitted he has been motivated to overcome post-Athens setbacks, including a DUI, a broken wrist and the blahs. Friends sent him “over 100” text messages after his first gold. “I was just thinking about all these text messages, saying, ‘We’re all rooting for you,” he said. “I got a little choked up.”
He was 15 when he made the Olympic team in 2000, the youngest swimmer to make it since 1932. He finished fifth in the 200 butterfly. It was a nice story.
Five months later, he broke the world record.
Three years and seven months later, he won six golds and two bronzes.
This year, maybe eight golds.
Please, stop him before he eats again.
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