Phelps is all grown up

The Baltimore Sun

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA -- There is a simple explanation for why Michael Phelps was able to break five world records and win seven gold medals this past week at the FINA World Championships. It seems obvious looking back, but it took one of the most astonishing seven-day stretches in the history of sports for the picture to come completely into focus.

Phelps has become - physically and emotionally - a man.

When he was winning medals left and right at the Olympics in Athens in 2004, it was easy to overlook that, in many ways, he was still just a precocious teenager. Phelps still lived at home in Rodgers Forge, still needed his meals cooked for him, his laundry done, and he still needed his mother to wake him in the morning and make sure he got out of bed and off to practice on time.

It's a different story now. Debbie Phelps, the principal at Windsor Mill Middle School, said yesterday that, before the world championships, she hadn't seen her son since January at a swim meet in Long Beach, Calif.

"I don't know how he's training. I don't know how he's eating. I don't know how he's sleeping," she said. "I come as a spectator. But it's very important for me to be here for him."

Like every college-age person, Phelps, 21, needed to figure out how to handle the world on his own. After moving to Ann Arbor, Mich., and buying a home after the Olympics, he learned through trial and error how to accomplish basic tasks such as washing dishes, making meals and getting to the pool on time. And when things didn't go smoothly - like the time he nearly flooded his kitchen with bubbles after putting hand soap in his dishwasher - he learned from those experiences.

"My mom has done an unbelievable job raising me into the person I am today," Phelps said. "But I've also learned so much from being out on my own. I've had to make decisions and juggle things and not rely on her."

Phelps still made it a point to make eye contact with his mother after every race this week. He always knew where she was sitting.

"As a parent, you instill values in your children," said Debbie Phelps, with tears welling in her eyes, shortly after her son set his fifth world record of the week while winning the 400-meter individual medley yesterday. "You only hope when they go off on their own that they remain embedded in their hearts. I think they are with Michael. I think everything went pretty well."

Phelps' newfound maturity, when combined with superior swimming technique, increased weight training and the hunger to dominate his sport once again, formed the perfect storm leading up to the world championships. And when he dived into the pool last week, it was clear Phelps had not only regained the form he showed in Athens, but he also had surpassed it.

"He's a lot more mature, physically, psychologically and emotionally," said Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman. "That's it. It's very simple. He's just grown, as a person and as an athlete."

In the process, Phelps managed, for a week at least, to thrust swimming into the daily sports dialogue of many Americans in a non-Olympic year, which was no small task. Phelps acknowledged being amused and surprised when he turned on ESPN in his hotel room this week and heard arguments over who was the world's best athlete: Tiger Woods, Roger Federer or himself.

"I can't tell you how many people have sent me text messages that have said people are blowing you up [in the United States]," Phelps said. "They said it's been ESPN, PTI [Pardon the Interruption], the sports stations that so many kids my age watch. It's unreal. ... It's pretty cool to grow up watching ESPN and all of the sudden it pops up and you're on there. A year ago or two years ago, that wasn't the case. It's good to see the sport of swimming grow so much over the last few years."

Phelps' agent, Peter Carlisle, said he's confident Phelps will be the most watched athlete at the Olympics in 16 months.

"I think that doing as well as he did here really changes the context in which he's going to be discussed," Carlisle said. "I think this creates a pretty legitimate conversation of 'Who is the greatest athlete?' Even if it's just a debate, that's a really great thing for the sport of swimming."

And a good thing for Phelps from a marketing standpoint. Carlisle said he's confident this week's performance will translate into more companies wanting to hire Phelps to be a spokesman for their products.

"There is a reason why certain athletes have those kind of deals," Carlisle said. "They transcend sport. They're iconic. Michael has definitely put himself at that same level."

Two years ago, after a disappointing (by his standards) performance at the World Championships in Montreal, Phelps talked about how he realized his laserlike focus had wavered after the 2004 Olympics. Before Athens, every decision he made, down to the tiniest detail, was carefully considered in the context of how it would affect his swimming career. But suddenly, after winning eight medals, Phelps was famous. There were parties to attend, talk shows to appear on, beautiful women to meet and commercials to shoot. He felt, looking back, as though he had let himself down.

Bowman, however, didn't see it that way.

"I think it was good for him, because I think he kind of caught up on a lot of things he missed beforehand," Bowman said. "We all tend to do that at some point. If you don't get it along the way, you kind of compensate. I think he sort of did during that year. In the long run, I think it's helped him become a better person. Because I don't think he feels like he's missed so much. In the lead-up to Athens and immediately after, I think he might have felt like, wow, I didn't do a lot of things. Now, he's done a lot of things."

It also helped that, once Phelps moved to Michigan to swim for Club Wolverine, he was around people his own age, as well as swimmers who could push him, such as Klete Keller and Peter Vanderkaay. That was something he didn't have in Baltimore. Most of the time, it was just Phelps, Bowman, a pool, the coach's booming voice and a stopwatch.

"The group that we have from Michigan is like a family away from home," Phelps said. "The closeness we have with the team is huge. There's so much experience. We're all helping each other, and it's been a huge help for me."

Phelps' performance this week, in the eyes of U.S. swimming coach Mark Schubert, helped motivate the rest of the team. The U.S. swim team broke 15 world records and won 31 medals, tied for the most ever.

"I think Michael's swim in the 200 freestyle really lit the fire," Schubert said.

Schubert also said, in his mind, Phelps had without a doubt the greatest performance in the history of swimming. Even better than Mark Spitz's performance at the Olympics in 1972, when he won seven gold medals.

"I think Mark Spitz's performance was tremendous, and has inspired the United States for many years. That's kind of been the benchmark," Schubert said. "But there has been nobody that's not only as dominant and as versatile as Michael."

Bowman, however, still wouldn't go so far as to call it the perfect meet. The real test for Phelps will be in 16 months in Beijing, a meet he and Phelps have been anticipating for 10 years. And if you believe his coach, Phelps can be even better in China than he was this past week in Australia.

"I don't know if it's been the perfect meet, but it's good," Bowman said with a wink and a smile. "He can improve some things, but I won't give you the whole list. I'll save that. It's top secret."

kevin.vanvalkenburg@baltsun.com

Sun reporter Jennifer McMenamin contributed to this article.

Copyright © 2021, The Baltimore Sun, a Baltimore Sun Media Group publication | Place an Ad
72°