London 2012: Farewell Michael Phelps, the Olympian beyond comparison Andy Bull at the Aquatics Centre
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 4 August 2012 22.59 BST
In 2000, the 15-year-old Michael Phelps was sitting poolside at the Aquatics venue in Sydney, one of 17,000 spectators who had come to see the 4x100m medley relays. Phelps was a gawky, goofy kind of kid, still waiting for the growth spurt that would start the following year. His ears stuck out, and he wore a fringe that could have been cut by his Mum. That night he had his face painted blue and red, and 'Team USA' written across his chest. "I sat there, thinking how cool it would be to swim the relays." Twelve years later, Phelps' career came to a close with one final victory in that same event.
Phelps is adamant that he will never swim competitively again. As his team-mate Nathan Adrian touched the wall, taking the team home in 3min 29.35sec, almost two seconds ahead of Japan, Phelps broke into a gentle smile. It was not a look that spoke of great joy, or enormous passion. It suggested calm, peaceful, relief. Later, on the podium, he stood back and soaked in the adoring applause of the crowd.
This one last gold takes his overall Olympic medal tally to 22, and his collection of golds to 18, which is twice as many as anyone else in history. There will always be debate about whether or not Phelps is the greatest Olympian of all time or, as Sebastian Coe has said, simply the most successful. But statistically you can't even compare him to people anymore. Phelps is in a realm where he is measured against entire nations. He sits 41st in the IOC's historical medal table, above Argentina, India, Mexico and 162 other countries. And that's before you even begin to consider all the other landmarks – the 33 World Championship medals, the 36 world records.
So ends a career that started when Phelps was seven. Back then he was so scared of putting his face in the water that he had to begin by learning the backstroke. Things began to get serious in 1996, when Phelps was just 11. That was the year he first met his coach and mentor Bob Bowman, who burst into the changing room at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club and found a bunch of boys throwing towels and soap around. Phelps took the blame. "What a jerk," he remembers thinking of Bowman. "Thank God I never have to train under that guy."
Little did he realise. Bowman changed his life. And while you never really know what goes on inside someone else's family, it is true to say that as Bowman became more and more involved with Phelps, his own father, who left home when his boy was seven, became more and more distant.
That same year, another swimmer from North Baltimore, Beth Botsford, won gold medals in the 100m backstroke and 4x100m medley at the 1996 Olympics. Phelps watched her on TV, and for the first time began to dream of winning "just one Olympic medal". Bowman always believed he could do it. The next year he arranged a meeting with Phelps and his mother, Debbie. "It is possible that one day Michael might make the Olympics," Bowman told them. "I am not saying he will, I am saying he could, if everyone is willing to make the commitment."
Phelps was. He adopted Bowman's mantra: "We do things other people can't, or won't do." Between 1999 and 2004 there were three – and only three – days when he missed training. These days all the young swimmers who want to get to where Phelps is do the things he does. He had always said he wanted to change the sport, and he has. Just look at the young South African Chad le Clos, who beat Phelps in the 200m butterfly. He says he idolises Phelps, and has learned most of what he knows from asking the master.
The British freestyle swimmer Simon Burnett once said of Phelps: "I think I have figured him out, he is not from another planet, he is from the future. His father made him and made a time machine. Sixty years from now he is an average swimmer but he has come back here to mop up." Sixty years may be an over-estimation. Phelps thinks that many of his records will be broken before long, because the sport is moving on so quickly. He laughs when he sees the age of some of the swimmers winning medals here in London, and says "it is a good time to get out".
At these Olympics, Phelps never tapped into the furious anger that fuelled his swimming between 2001 and 2009. He was already slipping into retirement. He motivated himself by counting off the lasts as he went along – the last 400m IM heat, the last 200m butterfly semi-final, the last 100m butterfly final, and so on. Now, at last, he has ticked them all off. He has won four golds and two silvers here in London. Which still means he has more medals than any other athlete at these Games.
Those who say that he has more opportunities to win medals than great competitors in other sports are right, but then they are also blind to the flip-side of that. Each extra race is another risk, another chance to lose. Phelps competes at four lengths in four different strokes, each as distinct from the other as the long jump is from the 100m, or the marathon from the race walk. And he has mastered them all. "I never wanted to be the second anyone else," he has always said. "I wanted to be the first Michael Phelps." So he is. The first, last and only.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/aug/04/london-2012-michael-phelps-olympian?CMP=twt_gu Cracking article about Michael Phelps.
