Michael Phelps is the single most dominant athlete on the planet, bar none

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snowbunny00774 said:
^ that literally sucked up the last 10 minutes. It takes a while to work your eyes down that long torso :drool:

If I won the lottery we'd both be on a plane in August :yes:

And what a lovely long torso it is. :drool:

I was having a bad day until I saw that.
Thank you! :D

Only 9 more months till August.
 
[q]
Michael Phelps sets world record at U.S. swim trials

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
7:15 PM PDT, June 29, 2008

OMAHA -- Michael Phelps got the U.S. Olympic swim trials off to the same start he did four years ago, uncorking a world record in the 400-meter individual medley on the opening night.

His riveting stroke-for-stroke duel with runner-up Ryan Lochte unleashed the crowd of 12,316 at the Qwest Center here Sunday night, and then Phelps thrilled them with the stunning time, 4 minutes 5.25 seconds.

Lochte himself, at 4:06.08, was under Phelps' previous world record (4:06.22), which was set in 2007.

The early crowd noise signaled to Phelps that "something special is going to happen."

He tried to temper his enthusiasm in the opening lap.

"I can't get too excited, it's only the first 50," Phelps said. " . . . I definitely started the meet off on the right foot. I'm happy to go 4:05."

That was only the beginning. There would be another world record and one American record for good measure before the opening session concluded: a world record from Katie Hoff, who went 4:31.12 in the 400 individual medley, and an American record from Larsen Jensen of Trojan Swim Club, who won the 400 freestyle in 3:43.53, edging Peter Vanderkaay's 3:43.73. Both went under Vanderkaay's American mark of 3:43.82, set in May at Santa Clara, Calif.

Said Hoff: "This one's definitely a shock for me."

That pretty much summed up an electric night of swimming.

[/q]



it's on.

but brilliant swim by Lochte. a huge, huge drop off his personal best.

my guess is that Phelps will be in even better form in Beijing.

those times were unthinkable even 4 years ago.

what was also unthinkable before Phelps is the idea of 12,000 turning out for a swim meet.
 
I would respect swimmers of today more if it wasn't for the new suits that help break those world records.

If he will top Mark Spitz, then let's talk.
 
New swimsuits have always been helping swimmers shave time. :shrug:

Did anyone read Gary Hall Jr's comments on doping and swimming? He brings up Amy Van Dyken's name in the same breath as Marion Jones. I wonder if we'll ever find out why she was on BALCO's list.

You can always count on Gary Hall Jr for entertainment.
 
I would respect swimmers of today more if it wasn't for the new suits that help break those world records.

If he will top Mark Spitz, then let's talk.




do you dislike goggles, lane lines, deep pools, and better training techniques?

all due respect to Spitz, but Phelps is a far better swimmer than Spitz ever was. he's vastly more versatile, swims harder events, wins by more, and swims against an entire globe of competitors.
 
The above are far more egalitarian, at least. The swimsuit benefits the swimmer that gets it ahead of everyone else (as will be the case in Beijing).

Maybe but if he wants to be best swimmer ever let's top Spitz achievement. It's hard to compare different athletes from different sports for any "best" debate.
 
The above are far more egalitarian, at least. The swimsuit benefits the swimmer that gets it ahead of everyone else (as will be the case in Beijing).

Maybe but if he wants to be best swimmer ever let's top Spitz achievement. It's hard to compare different athletes from different sports for any "best" debate.



everyone at that level has it. everyone. if they're not wearing it, it's through choice, and usually tied to sponsorship with another company (Nike, Arena, TYR).

not sure about your comment, though -- it is hard to compare Phelps to, say, Jordan or Federer or Woods. but i think you can compare him to Spitz.
 
In my opinion Phelps has already surpassed Spitz. Competing in the 200 and 400 IM as well as other individual & relay events is mind boggling. :crack: The speed suits have been around for 10 years or so now. I think the Atlanta Olympics is the last time I can remember more "traditional" swimsuits being used in competition. The current incarnation is just the fastest yet. I remember the first time I saw the knee length suits and thought "These will make you go faster?" Huh, who knew?

Put Phelps and everyone else in traditional speedos and he still dominates.
 
everyone at that level has it. everyone. if they're not wearing it, it's through choice, and usually tied to sponsorship with another company (Nike, Arena, TYR).

not sure about your comment, though -- it is hard to compare Phelps to, say, Jordan or Federer or Woods. but i think you can compare him to Spitz.

I don't know...the article I saw stated that one of the swimmers (not Phelps, and not Speedo but another company) got an exclusive sponsorship deal to wear a brand new suit in Beijing while others won't be able to wear that particular suit. I just think everyone should, at that level, get access to any new materials at the same time and then let's see who's fastest.

Well, what would Spitz do with these suits, and changes in swimming techniques and physical training ?:shrug:
 
Making a Splash

Speedo's new and controversial high-tech LZR suit is helping swimmers smash dozens of records. How the company plans to capitalize on Olympic gold.
Keith Naughton
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 3:15 PM ET Jun 20, 2008

Michael Phelps steps onto the blocks of a large indoor pool in Omaha. He's about to swim the 100-meter butterfly at an Olympic tune-up meet this month. He bends into his starting position, flaps his arms across his back and launches at the sound of the horn. In the first lap, he's only in second as he makes his flip turn. But with 25 meters to go, he turns it on and the crowd roars. In a few soaring strokes, he's two body lengths ahead and pulls away. He touches the wall in 51.04 seconds—the fastest in the world this year in the event. Backstage, reporters swarm Phelps. But instead of asking about his amazing finish, they pepper America's swim king with questions about the high-tech Speedo swimsuit he's wearing. "I don't usually get questions about my suit," he said. "It's kind of funny."

Don't laugh. Phelps's quest to top Mark Spitz's seven gold medals is only the second biggest swim story in the run-up to the Olympics. Speedo's LZR Racer swimsuit is causing the biggest splash in and out of the pool. The rubbery full-body corset would look more at home in a Batman movie than on the pool deck. But since it was introduced in February, swimmers wearing it have set a stunning 38 world records. Rivals' suits have set just three world records during that time, which has them crying foul (while scrambling to come up with their own sci-fi suits). The coach of the Italian team calls the LZR Racer "technological doping." The second largest U.S. swimwear maker, TYR, filed a federal lawsuit in California, alleging anticompetitive practices, against Speedo's parent company, the coach of the U.S. swim team and even a TYR endorser, Olympic medalist Erik Vendt, who switched to the Speedo. A Japanese swimmer under contract to Mizuno just set a world record in a LZR (pronounced laser), which he'll wear in Beijing. Swimming's governing body, FINA, approved the LZR for the Olympics, but controversy still swirls, which is fine by Speedo. "It's very nice to have your competitors recognize they're at a disadvantage," says Speedo's marketing chief Stu Isaac. "They're doing our marketing for us."

And Speedo will take the help. Despite its dominance in the pool, Speedo is not that big a fish. It does just $250 million in annual U.S. sales and about $555 million worldwide, say officials at Warnaco, its U.S. parent. With those relatively modest revenues, Speedo certainly can't afford to advertise on TV for the Olympics. But Speedo's athletic performance has made it the No. 1 swim brand in the world. In the United States, where it faces fierce competition from Nike and TYR, Speedo commands 61 percent of the competitive-swimwear market, according to sports-marketing researcher SportsOneSource. "Speedo is the Kleenex of swimwear," says analyst Marshal Cohen of the NPD Group. "But not since the advent of steroids have we seen so many record-smashing events."

This week at the U.S. Olympic trials in Omaha, even more world records could fall. And come August in Beijing, says U.S. swim coach Mark Schubert, "every world record is in jeopardy. The suit is definitely a factor." Throughout most of the modern Olympic era, Speedo has been leaving rivals in its wake. Founded in Australia 80 years ago (that's the origin of the boomerang logo), Speedo won its first Olympic gold medal at the 1932 Games in Los Angeles. During the 1956 Olympics, the Australian team debuted that barely-there brief that remains Speedo's signature look, and it swept the golds.

Spitz wore iconic red, white and blue Speedos when he won his record-setting seven golds in Munich in 1972. At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Speedo debuted its full-body Fastskin suits that covered swimmers in fabric patterned on sharkskin, which Phelps wore four years later in Athens while winning eight medals. He says the LZR, with its water-repellent fabric and slick polyurethane panels, makes him feel like "a rocket," which is apt since NASA helped engineer it.

But there aren't enough Olympians to keep a swimwear company afloat. Speedo uses them, though, as show horses. It says it spent "tens of millions" developing the LZR Racer over the last four years, knowing it would never directly recover those costs. After all, the LZR is priced from $290 for men's jammers (think bicycle shorts) to $550 for the full bodysuit. The idea is that the 300,000 kids on swim teams—and everyday sunbathers—will want a piece of Phelps glory. Speedo will be ready with replica suits with the same flowing stars-and-stripes motif, but for $40-$78. "LZR Racer is a pretty small part of our business, under 5 percent," says Warnaco Group president Helen McCluskey. "But it's what gives us credibility. It's the couture version of Speedo."

Its creation began after the closing ceremonies in Athens. At the time, some experts suggested that the sharkskin design on Speedo's Fastskin suit was little more than a gimmick. After all, Spitz swam into history in tiny Speedos, without even a swim cap. A prominent doubter was Iowa State physiology professor Rick Sharp, a former collegiate swimmer, who wrote two papers questioning Speedo's performance claims. But rather than taking offense, Speedo was intrigued. "He was asking all the right questions," says Jason Rance, chief of Speedo's Aqualab global R&D center in England. So Rance called Sharp in 2004 to ask him to lead a team of outside experts to help build a better suit. "I laughed and said, 'Have you read my papers?' " recalls Sharp.

Speedo also enlisted NASA to do tests on drag-reducing fabrics. "We're just a bunch of nerds who don't swim," says NASA fluid-mechanics engineer Stephen Wilkinson. "This was new to us." In wind tunnels used to detect surface friction on spacecraft re-entering Earth's atmosphere, he tested scores of swimsuit swatches by blowing air across them at 63 miles per hour to simulate a swimmer as fast as Phelps. He found the fastest fabrics were coated with polyurethane, a slick, rubbery substance that slices through the water with less resistance than uncoated fabrics.

Speedo then began stitching together samples that Sharp tried out on Iowa State swimmers. Not everything went as planned. "We had one suit that looked great on paper," he says. "But then when we dove into the pool, it ballooned out like a parachute." The polyurethane panels, which act like a girdle to streamline swimmers, also proved problematic. "At first we put that girdle structure way up onto the rib cage," says Sharp. "But then we realized it restricted a swimmer's breathing."

It also wasn't so easy to wear. To prevent rips, Olympian Dara Torres found she had to "sit on the floor and inch it on like panty hose." Phelps's drawstring broke just before a race in May. Rattled, he quickly slipped into an old Speedo and promptly swam seven seconds slower than his world record in the 400-meter individual medley. His coach Bob Bowman says putting Phelps into a larger LZR solved the problem.

But despite the hype, there's one swimmer who's yet to set a record in a LZR: Michael Phelps. "The swimmer makes the suit, not the other way around," says Bowman. For Speedo, that means its success is not just riding on its high-tech Superman suit. It's also riding on the swimming superman wearing it.
 
Well, what would Spitz do with these suits, and changes in swimming techniques and physical training ?:shrug:

Spitz was not a 200 or 400 IMer. I still have nightmares about being entered in a 400 IM. Phelp's events are more demanding all around. Phelps dominates in a traditional speedo, fastskin, or LZR.
 
Technological improvements occur in every sport - that's just the way it is. In track and field, they are constantly updating spikes to help make sprinters run faster - doesn't mean they aren't as good as sprinters of the past, they just have more available to them.
 
I don't know...the article I saw stated that one of the swimmers (not Phelps, and not Speedo but another company) got an exclusive sponsorship deal to wear a brand new suit in Beijing while others won't be able to wear that particular suit. I just think everyone should, at that level, get access to any new materials at the same time and then let's see who's fastest.

Well, what would Spitz do with these suits, and changes in swimming techniques and physical training ?:shrug:



the issue is that in some countries, their national teams have exclusive contracts with certain manufacturers (i.e, Italy and Arena). this was an issue in Japan as well, and their best swimmer, Kitajima, wore a shirt that said "I am the swimmer" and a LZR, and then broke the WR in the 200 br. the Japanese swimming federation changed their rules, and now Japanese swimmers can wear a LZR if they so choose.

so it's not about the availability of the LZR, it's about the willingness of a sponsor to allow athletes or national teams under contract to wear a different suit.
 
Well, what would Spitz do with these suits, and changes in swimming techniques and physical training ?:shrug:


we'll never know. :shrug:

in 35 years, Michael Phelps will look as slow as Spitz does now.

the best measure, i think, is to see how successful one athlete was in his era, but even that's strained since Spitz didn't face the globe in the way that Phelps does now (even though it seems that most of Phelps's competition seems to come from within the USA). but at least in the relays, it is global. where was South Africa in 1972? they won the gold in 2004 in the 4x100 free.
 
the issue is that in some countries, their national teams have exclusive contracts with certain manufacturers (i.e, Italy and Arena). this was an issue in Japan as well, and their best swimmer, Kitajima, wore a shirt that said "I am the swimmer" and a LZR, and then broke the WR in the 200 br. the Japanese swimming federation changed their rules, and now Japanese swimmers can wear a LZR if they so choose.

so it's not about the availability of the LZR, it's about the willingness of a sponsor to allow athletes or national teams under contract to wear a different suit.

Then let the international swimming federation/association make the rule that anyone, if they choose, gets to wear a LZR. Don't let it be down to exclusive contracts.
 
I really like watching him swim (and no not for his physique, mostly because I find his face very unattractive).

I always hate the "most dominant athlete" talk as relating to anyone because cross-sport, I just think it's silly and comparing apples to oranges. He is the best swimmer. Is he a better swimmer than Federer is a tennis player? Who knows and who cares? :shrug:
 
[q]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/28/AR2008062802121_pf.html

OMAHA, June 28 -- Eight years ago, when Michael Phelps swam in his first Olympic trials as an unknown teenager with untapped -- and perhaps boundless -- potential, the event was televised over a couple of hours, compressed and tape-delayed, all but an afterthought. When Phelps dives into the pool here Sunday night, he will do so in prime time, on live national television, with at least a portion of the population waiting for another world record to fall.

In 2000 in Indianapolis, officials sold roughly 60,000 tickets over the eight days of the trials. Before this year's meet begins at Qwest Center, about 140,000 tickets have already been snatched up, with the potential for total attendance to be higher. Ten years ago, USA Swimming had an operating budget of $11 million. This year, it is $27 million.

"Clearly," said Chuck Wielgus, executive director of USA Swimming, "Michael hasn't hurt us in that regard."

Phelps's reentry into the Olympic-year spotlight starts Sunday. This time, he does so as a familiar character in the national sporting discourse, a winner of six gold and two bronze medals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, a world record holder in four individual events, a proven man rather than a kid from Baltimore County with brazen and seemingly outsized expectations.

Moreover, Phelps does so as the pursuer of a quest -- matching or exceeding Mark Spitz's record of seven swimming golds from the 1972 Games in Munich -- that is unlike any other athlete has undertaken in his generation, a desire to stare down history with an ambitious and intimidating program.

"If you had asked me five years ago if I'd be sitting in the shoes that I'm in right now, I would have said, 'Not a chance,' " Phelps said Friday in an increasingly rare appearance in front of a throng of reporters. "But I love what I do. It's a dream come true."

Phelps's arrival, too, is something of a dream for those who run USA Swimming. As Eddie Reese, the coach of the U.S. men's team, said Saturday, "Anything Michael's in is a great race."

His presence helps attract attention to other American swimmers, be they Katie Hoff, a contender for several Olympic medals who grew up training with Phelps at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, or Kate Ziegler, the 20-year-old Great Falls native who has held world records of her own. Those swimmers, and dozens of others, have more sponsorship money available to them, and therefore could have the opportunity to extend their careers, at least in part because of Phelps.

"It's changed, more or less, because of him," said Aaron Peirsol, the 2004 gold medalist in the 100- and 200-meter backstrokes. "It's like anything. Because of Tiger [Woods], golf's getting more attention. With Mike, we're on TV more. . . . I think it does help the sport as a whole, and we do notice it. I don't think 10 years ago we would've been swimming in a pool this nice. I think it just shows everything that's going on right now."

There is, however, some question about what exactly is going on with Phelps right now. He is entered in an astonishing eight individual events. (There are no relays at the trials.) To top Spitz's mark in Beijing, he would need gold in only five individual events and three relays, provided he is named to those teams. He was expected to drop two or three events, and the attrition began Saturday when he dropped the 400 freestyle.

"I stand here with a definite program" in mind, Phelps's coach, Bob Bowman, said Saturday. But he isn't talking about it. Phelps contends that even he doesn't know what's ahead. Will there be an intriguing matchup against Peirsol and world record holder Ryan Lochte in the 200-meter backstroke?

"If Michael Phelps is in it," Reese said, "all three of them will break the world record. I can guarantee that."

Will Phelps stick to the program that won him five individual golds at the 2007 world championships? That would mean opting out of the 100-meter freestyle, an event that could be one of the most competitive here. But it would leave him in the four events in which he holds world records -- the 200 freestyle, 200 butterfly and 200 and 400 individual medley. "You'll have to wait and see," Bowman said.

"Gamesmanship is a wonderful thing," said Mark Schubert, head coach and general manager of the U.S. national team. "If you're talented enough to qualify for those many events, don't you want to keep your competition nervous and guessing what you want to swim? I think it's wonderful."

Gamesmanship, though, is just part of it. In 2004, Bowman and Phelps worked to peak at trials, and then tried to replicate the performance at the Olympics. "It worked all right," Bowman said. This time, the process is geared toward swimming well here, but shaving significant time off in Beijing. Logistics -- the very order of the events, both here and at the Olympics -- will play the most significant role in Phelps's final program.

"We've been looking at it forever, and Michael and I talked about it today," Bowman said. "What will the total workload be on him if he swims those events?" For instance, if Phelps remains in the 200 backstroke to face Lochte and Peirsol, he will swim in three events in a single evening session. What makes for splendid theater might not make Phelps at his best for Beijing.

Whether Phelps himself breaks more records here, there is little doubt this will be one of the fastest meets ever. It comes in an Olympic year in which athletes are their most fit and focused, and the manufacturer Speedo has introduced a revolutionary swimsuit that is yielding faster times.

"I think you're not only going to see multiple world records," Schubert said, "but I think you're going to see multiple swimmers breaking world and American records in an event."

They could come from Hoff or Ziegler, from Peirsol or breaststroker Brendan Hansen or butterfly specialist Ian Crocker. By now, though, the expectation is that they will come from Phelps.

"He's a special swimmer," Reese said. "He's one in a century that can swim everything he swims. . . . He just keeps coming."

Coming hard, with history in mind, and bringing the rest of American swimming with him along the way.[/q]
 
[q]From The Sunday Times
July 6, 2008
Is this the world’s greatest athlete?
Six golds in Athens may prove to be just a warm-up act as Michael Phelps bids to rewrite the record books in Beijing


David Walsh
For the past eight days the US Olympic swimming trials have been taking place in Omaha, Nebraska. In a country with formidable depth in the sport, the trials are a tough and often cruel clearing house for would-be champions. Only the first- and second-placed finishers make the team to compete in Beijing - and in some events America has the three top-ranked competitors in the world.

For Michael Phelps, the trials have been something else. He is attempting to qualify for eight events in Beijing next month, and although he won’t say it, he is attempting to win eight gold medals there. In some of the disciplines his greatest rivals are the guys he must beat in Omaha, something akin to Roger Federer having to beat Rafael Nadal just to compete at Wimbledon.

Phelps is 23 and preparing for his third Olympics, so he should be getting used to the trials and the avoidance of tribulations. That isn’t to say it has been easy. On the opening day’s competition at the Qwest Centre in Omaha, he had to contend with the exceptional Ryan Lochte in the final of the 400m individual medley.

Lochte is gunning for Phelps. He knew that if he could wound him in Omaha, it would be easier to beat him in Beijing. In an epic final, Lochte produced an astonishing performance to get inside of Phelps’s world record. It was good enough to get him the second qualifying spot in the event; Phelps beat him by 0.83 of a second to lower his record by almost a full second.

They raced side by side for more than four minutes. Phelps gained an advantage in the opening butterfly leg, lost a little in the backstroke and a little more in the breaststroke. When they turned for the final 100 metres of freestyle, they were virtually level. Phelps then went even harder, edging ahead, inch by inch, until he had taken a small but decisive advantage. “That was one of the most painful races I’ve had,” he said afterwards. “Everything was left in the pool. I couldn’t have done it without Lochte. He’s a great friend and great competitor.”

These trials are just one of the stepping stones he has had to negotiate on his journey to Beijing. But this is not just about Beijing. It is something far greater than one swimmer’s Olympics.

Already Phelps is the most gifted swimmer we have seen. It is quite possible that he will win eight gold medals next month, to add to the six he won as a 19-year-old in Athens. Eight golds in Beijing would make him the most successful athlete in the history of the Olympic Games. And then he could be reaching his peak in London in four years.

Perhaps we are talking about the world’s greatest sportsman. What is it in sport that inspires? We speak of skill and technical brilliance, of mental toughness and tactical cunning, of the ability to perform on the biggest days. All are important, but it is sheer, almost freakish, talent that most thrills us. The little flick with his left foot that lifted the ball over Colin Hendry’s head, followed by the flashing right-foot volley defined Paul Gascoigne’s gift and endeared him to lovers of fine football.

Brilliance momentarily magnetises us, but the greatest sportsmen must produce more. Primarily, they must dominate their sport. That is difficult but not impossible for the one who is part of a team. Did not Diego Maradona win the 1986 World Cup virtually on his own (or, at the very least, in the company of quite ordinary compatriots)? And there was a time when Jonah Lomu was the New Zealand rugby union team.

Nobody now dominates football as Maradona once did, nor has rugby seen a successor to Lomu. It is to the individual sports that one looks for the greatest of this era. Tiger Woods and Federer are the two most obvious contenders, but that is partly because they dominate high-profile sports that are easily understood and widely televised.

Can one eliminate Phelps because he is a swimmer? Of course not. Consider where he has come from. At the age of 15 he became the youngest male swimmer to set a world record when he lowered the mark for the 200m butterfly. That was the spring of 2001. At that time the swimming world thought him a phenomenal performer in that event. They didn’t understand the half of it. Soon he was swimming every stroke at world-class level.

In a six-week span in 2003, just after turning 18, he set seven world records. A year later he was expected to announce his greatness at the Athens Olympics. Six gold medals and two bronze was an impressive statement, and all that has happened since then is that he has got better. At last year’s world championships in Melbourne, his seven gold medals would have been eight if the US had not been disqualified in one of the relay finals.

It is easy to believe that Phelps works as hard at his sport as Woods and Federer do at theirs: how could a day on the driving range or half a day on the practice court be more difficult than a pair of two-hour sessions in a swimming pool? Phelps does that virtually every day; seven days each week. There are maybe one or two days a year that he doesn’t get in the water.

Greatness may be sustained by hard work, but the source of Phelps’s success lies in extraordinary talent. Generally, Olympic swimmers are freestylers or backstrokers, breaststrokers or butterfly specialists. Phelps began with the butterfly, conquered it and has since moved on to the freestyle; his domination of the 200m and 400m individual medleys speaks of world-class mastery of swimming’s four strokes. He did not swim the backstroke events at the trials despite being the second fastest man ever over 100m and the third-fastest over 200m. Imagine Federer as good on clay as on grass courts.

Woods has a similar versatility to Phelps. He is an extraordinary putter, the most wonderful iron-player and brilliant from any position around the greens. But Phelps’s versatility isn’t merely technical. He has proved himself the best in the world at distances ranging from 100m to 400m. Think of Asafa Powell winning both the 100m and 400m at the Beijing Games. Yet the most telling testimony to Phelps’s greatness lies in what he will have to do to win eight gold medals in Beijing.

Depending on how many of the relay preliminaries he will be asked to race, he will have about 18 races in eight days. It is why he trains as he does. And perhaps the most bewildering certainty of all is that if Olympic swimming competition was held over 10 or 12 days rather than eight, Phelps would be chasing 10 or 11 gold medals rather than eight. He is that versatile and that talented.

To the untrained eye, all champion swimmers appear to have identical physiques – tall and lean, with broad shoulders and slim hips. Yet it doesn’t take long to notice how Phelps differs from the mould. His torso is unusually, almost freakishly, long, while his legs are relatively short. Make a call based on the length of his legs, and you would put him at 6ft, but he has the upper body of a 6ft 8in giant. His actual height is 6ft 4in, but the lower body, the bit that sags most in the water and creates resistance, is relatively small.

Nature helped in other ways. He was naturally flexible and better able to propel himself through water. He had what his coach, Bob Bowman, would call “an aquatic body”. Given that he seemed born to swim, it was fortunate that his older sisters, Hilary and Whitney, were high-class swimmers. Whitney was expected to make the US team for the Atlanta Games in 1996 but didn’t qualify, and although that was a huge disappointment for the family, it didn’t lessen Michael’s determination to reach the top.

He didn’t have an easy ride. At elementary school he was found to have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and with that came the customary difficulties: unable to sit still or to show the concentration necessary to complete homework assignments. He was on Ritalin for a couple of years, but came off the medication because he wanted to deal with the problem on his own.

It didn’t help that during his formative years, his parents were not getting on. They divorced when Michael was nine. In the fallout from the break-up, the youngster lived with his mother, Debbie, a teacher, and had limited contact with Fred, his father, who is a state policeman. “It was all just a hard time in Michael’s life,” Debbie once said.

Perhaps he would have survived anyhow, but Phelps was helped by his love of swimming and the fact that he was naturally talented and competitive. Through his mother’s eyes, the sport was a perfect fit for a boy who would not sit still but could swim length after length and never seem to get bored. It was fortunate, too, that when he moved from the Loyola High School pool in Towson, Maryland, to the more prestigious North Baltimore Aquatic Club, he encountered Bowman, who would become his first and, so far, only coach.

Bowman was talented but volatile and had been around swim clubs, as if searching for something he wasn’t destined to find. At first he and Phelps didn’t get on. The kid had an attitude; the coach was a disciplinarian with a low tolerance level for swimmers who answered back. But when things clicked, the early problems became part of what has made their relationship so strong.

Bowman likes to say that he has just been a coach, but the relationship is more than that. With Fred Phelps’s marginal role in his son’s life, it is easy to believe that coach Bowman became part father-figure. What he soon realised was that the kid had extraordinary talent. In the autumn of 1996, a few months after the disappointment of Whitney not being selected for Atlanta, the coach arranged what he said was an important meeting with Michael’s estranged parents.

When coaches come across a gifted young athlete, they are not given to understating the case. Bowman told the Phelpses that their son was a one-off, with a talent so rare that if nurtured properly, it would make him one of the best swimmers in the world. Bowman had had seven coaching jobs, worked in four states, seen hundreds of outstanding young talents, but this one was different.

So exceptional was the 11-year-old that Bowman could foretell the rest: within four years he would be competing with the best in the country and would be judged promising enough to be sent as a spectator to the Sydney Olympics; four years after that, he would make the team for Athens and contend for medals; after that there would be world records.

Bowman got it wrong. Phelps made the US team for Sydney. At 15 years of age, he was the youngest American male swimmer at the Olympics for 68 years. He finished a highly creditable fifth in the 200m butterfly. Six months later, still 15, he broke the world record in the event. Eight years after the coach had predicted that Phelps would compete for medals in Athens, he won six Olympic golds, including four in individual events, the same number that Mark Spitz won in Munich in 1972.

As great athletes inspire us, they also incite our scepticism. How can we not wonder what we’re watching when an Olympic sprinter explodes off the block? In the face of an unbelievable performance, it is now natural to wonder if we can believe it. This is not just athletics and cycling and baseball, it is everywhere. Last week China’s best backstroker, Ouyang Kunpeng, was banned for life after testing positive for the anabolic steroid clenbuterol.

There are good reasons for believing that Phelps is clean. He was almost as good at 15 as he is now, and there has not been a sudden, difficult-to-explain leap in his performance level. That his is a special talent, related to the ease with which he takes to water, is clear from his technical mastery.

“You look at him,” says four-time British Olympian Karen Pickering, “and you see someone who does all the little things so well. His starts, his turns, his work underwater – everything he does is right. And when it’s tight, he knows where the finish is better than his rivals.

“There have been some pretty exceptional swimmers in recent times: Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, Aleksandr Popov, Krisztina Egerszegi. Watching them was a joy, but Phelps is different. You have no idea what he is going to do, except that he might obliterate his rivals and knock a second or two off the world record. He’s certainly the greatest I have ever seen.” Perhaps another reason to believe in Phelps is that when his strength is measured out of the water, he scores badly. Physiologists from USA Swimming say he is one of the weakest elite swimmers they have measured. His bench press was poor. Asked to lift weights with his legs, he did not impress. Had he been using substances such as clenbuterol, he would have done far better in such tests.

The dry land of the gymnasium is not his terrain. “He’s fine on land,” the physical therapist Scott Heinlein has said. “He can walk. He can do all the things you want him to do. But he’s not extraordinary in any way. What Michael excels at takes place in water, so what does it tell you to test him on land?”

The sense that he is a phenomenon, not just superior to but different from every other swimmer, is echoed everywhere. “In every walk of life you’ve got your all-time wonders,” says Lenny Krayzelburg, a member of the US team and a four-time Olympic gold medallist, “and Michael is our Einstein, our Newton. He has a chance, before he’s through, to win 25 gold medals at the Olympics."

To get anywhere near that mark, Phelps must continue to survive the US trials in Nebraska. On Friday evening, Lochte went after him in the 200m individual medley, desperate to have his revenge for the opening day’s defeat in the 400m medley. The shorter medley suited Lochte better. To hold him off, Phelps had to swim another world record. Although finishing second to Lochte would still have qualified him in the 200m, Phelps does everything to win every race. When an athlete is perceived to be invincible, it is better for him to continue winning.

It will help that he is level-headed, likable, naturally respectful of his rivals and a fierce competitor who, on the biggest days, seems like the coolest kid on the blocks.

He is asked constantly if he will win eight gold medals in Beijing and surpass the seven golds won by in the pool by Spitz 36 years ago. Sensibly, he says that to win one gold would be a fine achievement and that he just wants to go there and swim his best.

“You wouldn’t bet against him,” says Pickering. “I have never seen him have a wobble, not produce his best on the big occasion. He has the advantage of being American and having great chances of winning gold in the three relays – but then, he is a big part of why the US relay teams will be so hard to beat. He’s got five individual events. Ian Crocker will be tough to beat in the 100m butterfly, Ryan Lochte very tough in the 200m medley, but,” she repeats, “I wouldn’t back them against Michael.”

Spitz, who swam in a less competitive era, was asked what it would be like if Phelps equalled his seven golds. “It would be like the second man on the moon,” he replied, with a well-disguised modesty. And what if Phelps actually got the eight? “First man on Mars,” Spitz replied.

For an athlete who sometimes seems to have come from a different planet, that might be appropriate.

The man from Atlantis

Michael Phelps has used his physical and mental attributes to elevate performance in the pool to a new level

WINGSPAN
At 6ft 7in, Phelps’ wingspan is key to his supreme handling of water and his critical balance when travelling through the water at speed

HANDS
Phelps has large, paddle-like hands for pulling his way through the water, Paul McMullen, a long-time, full-time observer of Phelps since the swimmer’s youth in Baltimore, once wrote: "Physiologists can measure Phelps’s wingspan and quantify his ability to process energy, but the observation that most clearly differentiates Phelps from every other swimmer on earth is this: Phelps can manipulate water like no human since Moses"

FEET AND HIPS
Size 14 feet (size 15 in Australian measures, compared to size 17 for Ian Thorpe) provide powerful propulsion. They combine with powerful hips to make Phelps the most lethal human dolphin in the world

PSYCHOLOGY
Most swimmers would be unable to contemplate a programme of eight events in the Olympics. Phelps gets there by being wedded not to the end result but to the journey he knows will take him there. You have to go one day at a time, one meet at a time, and one practice at a time. Everything is about steps and constantly improving on your own times and achievements”

PHYSIOLOGY
Phelps has an engine that pumps more than 30 litres of blood per minute to his major muscle groups (human average, 15l) He also has a freakish ability to recover quickly. After one of his races, physiologists took a pinprick of his ear to measure his blood lactate level (lactic acid is what causes ''muscle burn'', a sign of the oxygen deficit that causes muscles to shut down). Phelps’s lactate level immediately after racing was 5.0 (5 millimoles per litre of blood). Other swimmers typically produce levels of 10 or 15, or sometimes higher

TORSO
Phelps has broad shoulders, thin hips, a flat backside, a long torso and relatively short legs. The ratio translates to impeccable balance in water and minimal resistance

And if Phelps isn’t the greatest, then what about these four sporting superstars?

The scale of Phelps’s achievements and presence is acknowledged by Britain’s Stephen Parry, who claimed bronze behind him in the 200m butterfly in Athens. ‘Michael is an incredible athlete. He’s a legend. He was a world record holder at 15 years of age in the 200 ’fly back in 2001. That’s phenomenal. You know when you go into a race with someone like that that you’re dealing with extraordinary things outside your control. You line up there, it's an Olympic final and it’s what you've dreamt about all your life. I got excited down the third 50. I was having delusions of grandeur that Phelps was going to die a death and I was going to win the gold medal. It is an astonishing feeling to be so close to someone who is a living legend.’

But there are four other active athletes who have dominated and revolutionised their fields to lay claim to the title of the greatest . . .

TIGER WOODS
The American has won 14 majors, the last in June when he defied a knee injury to win the US Open, leaving him four behind Jack Nicklaus in the all-time list. Woods is one of only five men to have won all four of golf’s majors. Only he and Nicklaus have won each major at least three times. When he won The Masters in April 2001, he became the only golfer in the modern era to hold all four majors at the same time. His long hitting has prompted tournament organisers to lengthen courses on which he regularly competes and he has set the benchmark for his peers in terms of fitness and gym work. Woods’s emergence as possibly the greatest golfer of all time has also brought more sponsors and viewers to the game, leading to a financial windfall from which his rivals have benefited

ROGER FEDERER
Victory on Centre Court today against rival Rafael Nadal would be the crowning achievement of the Swiss player’s career, taking him past Bjorn Borg’s record of five consecutive Wimbledon titles. Those records he holds include most consecutive Grand Slam singles finals (10), from July 2005 to September 2007, and unbeaten runs on grass (65) and hard court (56). When he won the Australian Open in January 2004, he became world No 1, a position he has not relinquished since. A friend of Woods, Federer has so far won 12 Grand Slam titles. The only one missing from his CV is the French Open, where he has been a beaten finalist for the past three years against Nadal. His topspin forehand has been described by John McEnroe as ‘the greatest shot in our sport’

FLOYD MAYWEATHER
Not strictly speaking a current, competitive athlete but only retired last month and his performance in December against Britain's Ricky Hatton, whom he stopped in the 10th round, confirmed his status as The Ring magazine's pound-for-pound best fighter in the world, an honour he was first awarded in 2005 and has held every year since. His career record shows 39 wins and no defeats, with 25 knockouts. Mayweather started as a super featherweight but moved up to lightweight, light welterweight, welterweight and light middleweight and won world titles in all five divisions. His victory over Oscar de la Hoya in 2007 is considered his greatest moment. Showed how nimble he really was when he wowed viewers with his performances on American TV’s Dancing with the Stars

ROMAN SEBRLE
Played football for 13 years before changing to athletics. Since then, he has followed in the footsteps of Daley Thompson and American Dan O'Brien, by winning not only Olympic gold in 2004 (after narrowly missing out on winning four years earlier) but also taking the world decathlon title last year. Sebrle is also the reigning European champion and holds the world record, becoming in 2001 the first decathlete to return more than 9,000 points in the event. He is the only decathlete in history to have finished 40 competitions with more than 8,000 points and 20 with more than 8,500 points. In 2007, he was nearly killed while training in South Africa when a stray javelin pierced his shoulder. In 2008, a panel of experts in the Wall Street Journal voted him the world's greatest athlete.[/q]
 
Dude, what the hell is Dara Torres on? :huh:

craziness.

Oh, and they should never, ever, let Bob Costas near a pool to interview swimmers again. :| My sister and I were cringing at the stupid/inane stuff he was asking Phelps this weekend.
 
Okay, here are the events Phelps will be swimming according to USA Swimming:

200m IM
400m IM
100m Fly
200m Fly
200m Free
4x200m Free Relay

He'll be a part of the Medley relay (to make 7 events) but what is the 8th event?
 
4x100 free relay.

he swam in prelims and went 47.9, which would have gotten him 2nd in the final, and was the 3rd fastest overall time, and he's now one of only 6 (i think) men to swim under 48.
 
The promise -- baltimoresun.com

Editorial Notebook
The promise

By ¿¿Peter Jensen
July 5, 2008

To those who spend their summers at a Baltimore-area pool, especially for anyone involved in competitive swimming, watching native son and daughter Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff dominate the field at the U.S. Olympic swim trials this week has been a thrill.

Beijing may be a long way from local summer swim teams, with their 6-year-olds struggling to finish 25 meters of backstroke without veering off into the lane lines or preteen breaststroke heats so slow that timers may be tempted to trade their stopwatches for calendars, but the connection is there nonetheless.

Even the awesome Michael Phelps, the recently-turned-23-year-old destined to be remembered as one of the greatest athletes of all time, once swam on Saturday mornings in the Central Maryland Swim League - just as thousands of area youngsters will do today.

Perhaps it is that connection that explains why twice last year, Mr. Phelps broke his Olympic training regimen to make brief trips to Baltimore County that escaped notice in the press. The first was in April, when he flew in to sit at the bedside of 11-year-old Stevie Hansen, easily the best swimmer of his age group at nearby Springlake Swim Club, who had spent five long years battling cancer in his brain and spine.

Stevie slipped into a coma that night before Mr. Phelps' arrival, but his parents, Steven and Betsy Hansen, remember the Olympic swimmer sitting beside his bed until 2 a.m., holding his hand and quietly making him a promise before having to leave for a return flight west.

Mr. Phelps' second trip was to the Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter in Lutherville some weeks later, where he attended Stevie's funeral.

The Hansen family and their friends are grateful for Mr. Phelps' devotion to Stevie. Even after Stevie's death, he continues to send them various autographed bits of Olympic memorabilia. Last month, Mr. Phelps' mother, Debbie, and oldest sister, Hilary, helped raise money for pediatric oncology at Sinai Hospital, where Stevie underwent chemotherapy.

The Hansens are still a swimming family. Over the years, Stevie's 10-year-old sister, Grace, has developed into a formidable year-round swimmer herself at North Baltimore Aquatic Club, and this summer, she's been rewriting Springlake's record books.

But there is also one piece of unfinished business. That night at the Hansen home, Mr. Phelps' promise was to win a gold medal this summer for Stevie.

So as the rest of us proudly watch Maryland's Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff set records and continue to dominate the field in Nebraska today and tomorrow, the Hansens will have a more personal stake - and it doesn't require breaking Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in a single Olympics.

With each qualifying victory in the pool, Mr. Phelps moves one step closer to keeping the pledge of Olympic gold he made more than one year ago to a young fellow swimmer. For all those who knew and adored Stevie, that now seemingly inevitable moment will be precious beyond measure.


:up:
 
I scanned this from this week's People Magazine. There's an article but I sort of got distracted..haven't read it yet

scan0001.jpg
 
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