The Hindu : Sport : Can Phelps become the Lord of Seven Rings?

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Wednesday, Aug 11, 2004

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Sport - Sports : General

Can Phelps become the Lord of Seven Rings?

By Mike Tierney

ATLANTA, AUG. 10. Some mornings, when the alarm clock wakes him at 6, Michael Phelps resets it for 6:20 and burrows back under the covers. Especially during cold mornings, when he dreads leaving his cosy bed and plunging into a frigid pool, like the one near his home in Towson, Maryland. It is the part of his job that he least likes.

Then Phelps might think of his Escalade that he juiced up with a sound system, television, Xbox and spinners. The 47-inch flat screen TV in his room. The $15,000 fees his agency charges for meet-and-greets. The half-dozen endorsements that fetch well over a million dollars. And the gilded carrot that dangles before him, representing his quest for at least seven gold medals at the Summer Olympics.

As he creases the water, no later than 7 a.m. most days, Phelps occasionally reminds himself how grateful he is not to be a busboy or a waiter, but a professional swimmer, the most versatile on the planet at age 19. He forced himself through an exhausting gauntlet at the U.S. Trials, entering six events, qualifying for the Games in all but one.

With as many as three relays rounding out his to-do list in Athens, Phelps has propped himself up as the most conspicuous Olympic athlete of all.

Also, the one who could tumble the farthest, and get bruised the worst.

Phelps is not predicting eight gold, or four, or two. He's just a confident teen who looks to the horizon, even beyond, and establishes the loftiest goals that his imagination will allow.

"I'm attempting something no one's ever done before" in any sport, he says, alluding to the seven gold swept up in 1972 by Mark Spitz in Munich. "I want to be able to look back at my swimming career (and see) that I've done everything I can to have been successful. This is a way to test how strong and how ready I am.

"If something happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But I'm at least going to try."

Phelps is an uncomplicated fellow, cut from the same cloth as most contemporary teens whose idle hours are consumed by video games, downloaded rap songs and cars.

He was unaware of Spitz's colossal feat for a long while and seemed disinterested in meeting him until the Trials. He is naive enough to believe that a one-man gold rush would transform swimming from a cicada-like sport into one with a steady buzz.

No chance there, but seven or eight gold would make Phelps the lord of these Rings, on a plane higher than the legendary Spitz even. (Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin holds the standard for most medals with eight in 1980.)

Spitz wrestled with far fewer media demands, faced softer competition, and juggled fewer races, the 200m events back then jumping straight from the prelims to the finals without any semis.

Most significantly, Spitz concerned himself only with freestyle and butterfly. Phelps, as a practitioner of the individual medley, must train for all four strokes.

Spitz, then 22, recalls Keith Jackson of ABC telling him, "This would be a record for all-time's sake." Came the reply, "Well, I hope I live long enough to see somebody break it." Today, 32 years later, Spitz says, "I hope he does."

Crushed by fifth

Phelps was just fishing for another athletic outlet, hanging at the pool where his older sisters swam, when he joined the North Baltimore Aquatic Club at age 10. The coach, Bob Bowman, knew instantly that the ultra-competitive kid was a pool shark and began to pay him one-on-one attention.

Their relationship evolved past coach-athlete. Phelps lacked a father figure, his parents having divorced when he was eight, his dad Fred all but out of the picture. Bowman, a bachelor, taught him how to tie a necktie, drove him to and from practices while his mother Debbie worked in education. They've been known to argue, as makeshift family members do.

At 6-foot-4, 200 pounds, Phelps has a body-by-swim-deity, long and wide, with oars for arms.

At 15, he was the baby among U.S. swimmers in Sydney, taking fifth in his lone event. He was crushed; Bowman, on the other hand, was dazzled by his potential.

The coach devised an elaborate training template intended to pile up the miles on his pool odometer, with stamina in mind. As Athens grew closer, they would shed events, if necessary, down to a workable number.

Phelps turned pro at 17, forfeiting the college experience that most swimmers embrace.

His high school classroom commitments dwindled to 3-1/2 hours daily as a junior, less as a senior. Sponsorship money poured in, taking care of the bills. Phelps had the time and freedom to immerse himself, literally, four hours per day in the pool; figuratively, around the clock.

His global coming-out was at the 2003 World Championships, where he undercut the World Record five times, winning five events. So, at the U.S. Trials last month, Phelps filled his swim plate as he does his breakfast plate, often loaded down.

Quality, not quantity

Bowman insisted he would not spread Phelps too thin and settle for medals of a lesser hue in Athens.

"Michael's career is not going to be validated until he has an Olympic gold medal," the coach says. "One gold medal is worth seven silver medals in my book."

One day after the Trials, Phelps scratched off the 200m backstroke, where he was a soundly beaten second. Thus he was spared a night that would have included two finals and one semifinal swim.

Still, his calendar remains chock-full with as many as 20 races in eight days, assuming he is chosen for the 400m freestyle relay to go along with the 800m freestyle and medley relays.

Though Phelps is well-liked by peers, many prescribe to the tradition of awarding the slots in the shorter relay to the first four finishers of the Trials' 100m freestyle, one of the few swims he bypassed.

"I'm real supportive of Michael and his goals," Gary Hall said. "But I think it's only fair to the individuals that swam it and earned it to give them a chance in the Olympics."

U.S. men's coach Eddie Reese has waffled on whether Phelps' toes will edge over the start blocks in the shorter relay. Phelps also placed second in the 100m butterfly at the Trials.

Yet his most daunting race is the 200m freestyle, where he will get double-teamed by defending Olympic champion Pieter van den Hoogenband and the indomitable World Record holder Ian Thorpe.

Thorpe was quoted as saying that seven gold for any man is a pipe dream. Phelps' comeback, certain to heighten the two nations' intense rivalry: "He is saying that he doesn't think it's possible for himself to do it."

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