Incredible.
Unbelievable.
Awe-inspiring.
Phenomenal.
It takes a lot of ways to make eight, and for this reason, many were unable to believe that Phelps could actually do this. It's not that he doesn't have the ability, the build, the speed, the mental strength. It's that to win a gold medal, let alone eight, requires complete perfection. There is so much luck involved in winning eight times. There is so much teamwork required. There is so much heart required, so much work required, so much brain strength required and for now, Phelps is the only athlete in the world to have all of this working in sync at the same time.
During the past few weeks, I've wanted to learn everything I could about Phelps, and what I've learned is this:
Michael Phelps is very different than most popular athletes in that his sport is only viewed by wide audiences in his home country every four years. When he watched the 1996 Olympics, Phelps saw basketball, track, and baseball but was most inspired by swimmers Tom Malchow and Tom Dolan. He spent countless hours in the pool, and these hours ended up making him an international champion.
In an interview with Matt Lauer, Phelps said he and his coach decided that he would swim every day of the 40 weeks between Worlds and the Olympics.He swam through Christmas, birthdays, and family events. He swam when he was angry and when he was jubilant, when he was tired and when he was fully fueled. He ate and ate and ate not to enjoy his meals but to fuel his body for workouts that burned upwards of 4,000 calories. Most Americans consume (or are recommended to consume) between 1200 and 2500 calories a day.
When most kids tired of pursuing their 11-year old dreams, Phelps pushed himself even harder to achieve his and became an Olympic swimmer by age 15. He left his family to follow his coach, moving from Baltimore to Ann Arbor where he lived on the University of Michigan campus, but passed on the education (for now) to make himself a better swimmer. He wrote down goals with his coach that became so specific that he had exact times he wanted to reach in different events. In order to prove that all he would accomplish was done by practice alone, Phelps volunteered for a United States Anti-Doping Agency program in which he would and still completes extra steroid testing. Cleanly.
During all of this, he attempted to live a normal life. He learned how to live on his own for the first time, was charged with a DUI once, got a dog who became his best buddy, lost to friends in video games, and cheered in awe for athletes like LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Paul Pierce and Tiger Woods. One of the coolest parts of the Olympics for him was actually getting a chance to meet these athletes, wordless like a camera-carrying fan from Nowheresville, USA.
There's only so much normal a 6'4" man with a 6'7" wingspan, size 14 feet and dinner-plate size hands can have, however. With physical assets and trained prowess in his sport, Phelps does not solely wish to win 8 gold medals; what he really wants to do is attract fans to swimming, to show people why he loves getting in that pool or cheering on his teammates as the push through clear, aqua water or watching with his heart pumping faster than he can swim as more world records are broken. He wants to revolutionize swimming in the way that Tiger Woods did with golf, in the way that the home run race brought back baseball and Jordan became the emblem of NBA dominance.
And for this new fan, he has.
