Phelps is certain to make a splash
BEIJING - This time, he finds himself in a country where eight is the luckiest of numbers. It didn't quite work for Michael Phelps in Athens four years ago, and he just missed getting it at the world meet in Melbourne last year. But over the next week-plus, the planet's best swimmer gets another, better chance at a record eight Olympic gold medals - assuming that's his quest.
"You are the guys talking about it," Phelps told the assembled media this week, as he prepared to take the water for his first preliminary race today. "I'm not saying anything. My goals haven't been published. [Coach] Bob [Bowman] and I are the only ones who know them."
Maybe those goals include the eight golds and maybe they don't. Only five of those medals - in the two butterfly events, the two individual medleys, and the 200-meter freestyle - are within Phelps's personal control. The other three - in the 4 x 100 and 4 x 200 freestyle relays and the 4 x 100 medley relay - depend on a bunch of his teammates getting the job done before or after him.
If they can't, then his bid to surpass Mark Spitz's record of seven in 1972 will end as it did in 2004 - with the 4 x 100 free relay on the second day of finals. Last time, the Americans finished third behind South Africa and the Netherlands in their lowest placement in history, and they're underdogs to the French here.
As it is, Phelps isn't looking beyond his opening race in the 400 individual medley, where Ryan Lochte pushed him to a world record at the Olympic trials and lost by less than a second. "The 400 IM is the most draining event," said Phelps, who likes having it first so he can get it off his overloaded plate. That was his biggest victory in Athens, he said, because it was his first one and because he was expected to win it.
This time, Phelps is favored in all five of his individual races. He holds the world marks in the 200 free (1:43.86), the 200 fly (1:52.09), the 200 IM (1:54.80) and the 400 IM (4:05.25) and he has consistently beaten global record-holder Ian Crocker in the 100 fly.
If Phelps is peaking now - and that's been his plan all year - he should win all five. The challenge, as it was in Athens, will come in focusing rigorously on each race and prudently parceling out his physical and emotional energy across nine days.
"In 2004, every race I would go for it," said the 23-year-old Phelps, who won six golds and two bronzes in Athens. "I've been able to learn over the past two years to conserve and try to save up a little bit because my event program is so long."
His schedule, as always at global meets, is brutal, with 17 races, including heats, semifinals, and finals. Phelps will be on the blocks every day, and on two of them he'll race three times, including finals less than an hour apart Wednesday. "The biggest advantage Michael has," said Bowman, "is that he's been through the process before."
Phelps has endured similar global grinders four times in the last five years, including the 2003 and 2005 world meets, and he and Bowman have learned how to choose his racing menu wisely, being careful not to jeopardize races in which he has his best chances by wearing himself out in others.
If Phelps wanted to, he probably could have competed in 10 events at the Games. His time in the 100 free at trials, where he withdrew after the heats, would have been fast enough to make the team in the event, and he won the national title in the 100 backstroke last year. But eight, clearly, is enough, and it's twice as many events as most of his rivals are swimming.
So Bowman draws up a winnable schedule and Phelps executes it. Last year in Melbourne, he went 7 for 7 and almost certainly would have gone 8 for 8 if Crocker hadn't been disqualified for false-starting in the preliminaries of the medley relay. "Michael does a wonderful job of attacking whatever is in front of him that day," said US head coach Mark Schubert.
That's been Bowman's mantra since Phelps was a kid and it has become habit for him by now. He warms up 90 and 30 minutes before his races and has been doing the same stretching ritual on the blocks for 15 years. When he hears the starting beep, Phelps simply dives in and does what comes naturally.
"One of the guys actually asked me when I push off, am I exhaling or am I holding my breath underwater?" he said. "And my answer was, I have no idea. I don't think about anything when I swim. I just get in the water and race."
No hesitations, no distractions. Nobody is better than Phelps at compartmentalizing, at blocking out anything that might get in the way of his getting his hand on the wall first. "If they gave out black belts for handling pressure, he'd be a sixth-degree," said US men's coach Eddie Reese. "Michael is a genius at handling every situation."
Other star athletes in other sports often escape to hotels at the Games, away from the it's-a-small-world carnival of the Olympic Village. But Phelps stays there with five teammates, watching movies and playing cards. He never lived in a dorm at the University of Michigan and he says it's a fun way to experience college life. This week, he'll just roll out of bed early (the finals are in the morning this time to suit NBC's prime-time preference in the States), grab some breakfast, and take on all comers.
If he holds off Lochte in the 400 IM tomorrow and the Yanks win the 4 x 100 free relay Monday, Phelps will be well on his way to the eight golds he insists are someone else's fantasy. What motivates him most are the races he's not likely to win, like the 200 free in Athens, where Phelps took on Ian Thorpe and Pieter van den Hoogenband and finished third. "I knew it would be a very, very tough race to win, but I didn't care," Phelps said. "I wanted to swim it. I like challenges. When I make my goals, they're all challenges."
The challenge for Phelps will be to block out the chatter about a man who won seven golds in Munich 13 years before he was born. "I've said this before and I'll say it again - I want to be the first Michael Phelps, not the second Mark Spitz," said Phelps, who needs only four golds to pass Spitz for most in a career. "I'm by no means downplaying his accomplishments. What he did was, and still is, the greatest Olympic performance of all time, and he will be always remembered as the greatest or one of the greatest Olympians of all time. I'm just looking to hopefully do something different in the sport than what he did."
