Micheal Phelps
By Vicki Michaelis, USA TODAY
Michael Phelps' remarkably long torso is like the hull of a boat, his coach says, allowing him to ride high on the water. His ankles, knees, elbows and shoulder joints are rubber-band flexible. His wingspan is 3 inches longer than his 6-4 height.
But for all of the genetic gifts that make him a master at defying drag in the water, for all of the physical advantages that could propel the 23-year-old swimmer in the next month to the best Olympic performance of all time, the key to Phelps' superiority is what is in his mind as he races.
Very little.
"It's either nothing or 'I have to get my hand on the wall before they do,' " says Phelps, who won six gold and two bronze medals in the 2004 Olympics.
His coach says that single-mindedness, that ability to shut out the great expectations and the supercharged Olympic atmosphere, will allow Phelps — who will race up to 20 times in Beijing in pursuit of a record eight gold medals — to climb out of the pool each time with an eye only on what's next.
"That," coach Bob Bowman says, "is his strongest attribute."
For an athlete who took Ritalin for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as a child, it is also his most surprising asset.
"Michael's ability to focus amazes me," says his mom, Debbie Phelps, a middle school principal who occasionally speaks on panels about ADHD. It's a condition that most frequently affects children, making it hard for them to pay attention to one thing or to sit for long periods.
Bowman, who began coaching Phelps at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club when the swimmer was 11, recalls how much time Phelps spent sitting near the lifeguard stand as a kid, benched because he was being too disruptive.
"He never sat still. He never shut up; he would never stop asking questions," his mom says. "He just wanted to go from one thing to another."
When he was in elementary school, a teacher told his mom that Phelps would never focus on anything. His mom disagreed. She had seen him at swim meets.
"He might be rocking on the kickboard as he's waiting to swim," she told the teacher, "but he knows what he wants to do."
Even then, Phelps pined to excel in the sport his mom initially chose for his energetic older sisters, Whitney and Hilary, now 28 and 30.
"I don't want to lose," Phelps says. "That's the thing. If I don't want to lose, I can focus."
Working toward a goal
Swimming wasn't just the family's pastime, it was its refuge. When Phelps was 9, his parents divorced, and his mom was grateful for the structure swimming provided. Hilary would become a college swimmer. Whitney nearly made the 1996 Olympic team before chronic back problems ended her career.
Under Bowman's guidance, their little brother grew from poolside pest into the world's best swimmer. The two have been together for 12 years, sometimes butting heads but more often blending Bowman's demanding, analytical approach with Phelps' talent and drive.
Both reject the notion that Bowman was a father figure while Phelps grew up with a single mom. In fact, they now refer to themselves as "business partners."
But Phelps acknowledges that Bowman helped him mature in and out of the pool.
"He, I guess, saw something in me … and really has never given up on me, through good times and bad," Phelps says. "He's been able to help me grow from the little 11-year-old swimmer who didn't really know what he was doing to the person I am today."
Before Bowman entered the picture, Phelps already was turning heads — and flashing his aversion to losing.
Early on, his competitive streak wasn't pretty. He threw his goggles on the pool deck after his first loss, sparking a prolonged conversation with his mother about what he could have done instead.
Phelps made the Olympic team as a 15-year-old entrant in the 200-meter butterfly in 2000. When he finished fifth in Sydney, he was angry he hadn't won a medal. But instead of throwing his goggles, he immediately began training again.
"Not accomplishing a goal, no matter what it is for me, just makes me want it that much more," Phelps says.
"When I didn't medal, I was like, 'All right, well, then I'm going to do this.' " Within seven months, he set a world record in the 200 butterfly.
Even now, Phelps trains every day — including Sundays, figuring it gives him 52 more days a year in the pool than many of his competitors.
In peak training phases, Phelps will swim at least 80,000 meters a week, nearly 50 miles. That includes two practices a day, sometimes three when he's training at altitude.
"His motivation is that he just hates to lose," says U.S. teammate Ian Crocker, who will race against Phelps in Beijing in the 100 butterfly. "He's got a lot of biological advantages plus that desire."
Phelps' physical advantages make him seem gangly and uncoordinated on dry land. With short legs that give him a 30-inch inseam — the same as Bowman, who is 5 inches shorter — he is not a fluid runner. His fingertips dangle nearly at his knees.
Phelps admits to feeling like a fish out of water when out of the pool, citing the right wrist he broke last October while catching himself in a fall.
"If I could sleep in the water and not leave it, that's probably my safest bet," he says. "I would never get hurt. I would never have any problems."
In the water, his short legs, with his double-jointed knees and pliable ankles attached to size 14 feet, help him undulate like a dolphin. His long arms, combined with the flexibility in his shoulders and elbows, extend the reach of his strokes, which are powerful and rhythmic.
"When I first saw Michael, in '96, I looked at his stroke, I looked at his body type and said, 'This kid is going to be awesome,' " says Jon Urbanchek, who worked with Bowman and Phelps the last four years after Bowman succeeded him as the men's swimming coach at the University of Michigan.
Indeed, in the 2004 Olympics, Phelps was awesome.
His eight medals were the most in one Games for any athlete in a non-boycotted Olympics. But the two bronze medals in that haul, from the 200 freestyle and 4x100 freestyle relay, left him short of Mark Spitz's seven golds in the 1972 Olympics.
"I would have liked it, but there's a time and place for everything, and that wasn't the time or the place, I guess," Phelps says.
The time could be now. Spitz, for one, thinks so.
"This is going to be history," Spitz says. "He's going to do, as we say, a little schooling to the rest of the world."
.... Of course, we all know now that Michael Phelps has become the Greatest Olympian of all times by winning 8 Gold Medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics (shattering 7 world records in the process!) and a total of 14 Gold Medals in any Olympic Games.
My thots: during the olympics, my fav sport was swimming, i was utterly AMAZED how this young fella gotta his medals...even the commentator was impressed...when i saw this article , i was even surprised cos he is one boy with ADHD who showed the world, he CAN DO IT , and even BETTER.
" a person with special need, need not be someone who is in need, he or she just need a chance to prove his or her special potential."
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