Michael Fred Phelps (born June 30, 1985) is an American swimmer. He has won 14 career Olympic gold medals, the most by any Olympian. As of 2008, Phelps holds seven world records in swimming.
Phelps holds the record for the most gold medals at a single Olympics, his eight at the 2008 Beijing Games surpassing American swimmer Mark Spitz's seven gold performance at Munich in 1972.
Overall, Phelps has won 16 Olympic medals: six gold and two bronze at Athens in 2004, and eight gold at Beijing in 2008. In doing so he has twice equaled the record eight medals of any type at a single Olympics achieved by Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin at the 1980 Moscow Summer Games. His five golds in individual events tied the single Games record set by Eric Heiden in the 1980 Winter Olympics and equaled by Vitaly Scherbo at the 1992 Summer Games. Phelps career Olympic medal total is second only to the 18 Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina won over three Olympics, including nine gold.
Phelps's international titles and record breaking performances have earned him the World Swimmer of the Year Award in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008 and American Swimmer of the Year Award in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008. He has won a total of 48 career medals thus far in major international competition, forty gold, six silver, and two bronze spanning the Olympics, the World, and the Pan Pacific Championships. His unprecedented Olympic success in 2008 earned Phelps Sports Illustrated magazine's Sportsman of the Year award.
PERSONAL LIFE
Phelps was born and raised in the Rodgers Forge area of Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from Towson High School in 2003.His father, Fred Phelps, worked for the Maryland State Police and his mother, Deborah Sue "Debbie" Davisson Phelps, is a middle school principal.The two divorced in 1994.Michael, whose nickname is "MP", has two older sisters, Whitney and Hilary.Both of them were swimmers as well, with Whitney coming close to making the U.S. national team for the 1996 Summer Olympics before injuries derailed her career.
In his youth, Phelps was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).He started swimming at age seven, partly because of the influence of his sisters and partly to provide him with an outlet for his energy. He excelled as a swimmer, and by the age of 10 held a national record for his age group. More age group records followed, and Phelps's rapid improvement culminated in his qualifying for the 2000 Summer Olympics at the age of 15.
In November 2004, at the age of 19, Phelps was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in Salisbury, Maryland. He pleaded guilty to driving while impaired the following month and was granted probation before judgment and ordered to serve 18 months' probation, fined $250, obligated to speak to high school students about drinking and driving and had to attend a Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) meeting.Questioned about the incident later that month by Matt Lauer on the Today Show, Phelps said it was an "isolated incident" and that he had "definitely let myself down and my family down ... I think I let a lot of people in the country down."
Between 2004 and 2008, Phelps attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, studying sports marketing and management. In May 2008, Phelps announced his intention to return to Baltimore following the 2008 Olympics, joining Bob Bowman there after leaving the University of Michigan, saying, "I'm not going to swim for anybody else. I think we can both help the North Baltimore Aquatic Club go further. I'm definitely going to be in Baltimore next year." Bowman left the University of Michigan to become the club's CEO.Phelps purchased a house in the Fells Point section of Baltimore, where he has resided since the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Phelps' teammates at the Olympics called him "Gomer" because he reminded them of Gomer Pyle, the good-natured, naïve country boy played by Jim Nabors on The Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C..
He has made an estimated $5 million per year in endorsements, including an estimated $1 million dollars to be the face of Mazda in China. After receiving a $1 million bonus from swimsuit maker Speedo for winning at least seven gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games,Phelps used the money to create the Michael Phelps Foundation, a charity foundation to promote water safety and to advocate swimming for children. Speedo then donated an additional $200,000 to the Foundation.
On December 1, 2008, TV Guide reported Phelps' selection as one of America’s top ten most fascinating people of 2008 for a Barbara Walters ABC television program that aired on December 4, 2008.
In early 2009, Phelps admitted to "behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment" following the publication of a photo by the British tabloid, News of the World, showing him using a bong, a device used for smoking marijuana. Following an investigation, the Richland County Sheriff's Department announced on February 16 that Phelps would not be prosecuted in connection with the incident because there was not enough evidence.[18] USA Swimming suspended Phelps from swimming competitively for three months, and Kellogg's announced that it would not renew his endorsement contract.[19] According to Vanno, which tracks companies' brand reputations, Kellogg's brand reputation was significantly damaged after dropping Michael Phelps.
PHYSIQUE AND TRAINING
A few physical attributes particularly suit Phelps to swimming: his long, thin torso offers low drag; his arms span 6 feet 7 inches (201 cm)—disproportionate to his height of 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm)—and act as long, propulsive "paddles"; his relatively short legs lower drag, and perhaps add the speed enhancement of a hydrofoil; his size 14 feet provide the effect of flippers; and his hypermobile ankles he can extend beyond the pointe of a ballet dancer, enabling him to whip his feet as if they were fins for maximum thrust through the water.
In October 2007, Phelps slipped on a patch of ice and fell while climbing into a friend's car in Michigan, breaking his right wrist. Coach Bowman recalled that Phelps was in despair over the injury. For a few weeks after the surgery, he was confined to kicking in the pool with a kickboard while his teammates swam. However, this allowed Phelps to strengthen his legs, which might have allowed him to edge out Milorad Cavic in the 100 butterfly final for his seventh gold medal at the 2008 Olympics. In the last five meters, an exhausted Cavic was dragging his legs while Phelps used a strong kick to get his hands to the wall first, by a hundredth of a second.
In a front page illustrated article profiling Phelps on the eve of the 2008 Summer Olympics, The Baltimore Sun described the hometown swimmer as "a solitary man" with a "rigid focus" at the pool prior to a race, but afterwards "a man incredibly invested in the success of the people he cares about". Bowman told a Sun interviewer, "He's unbelievably kind-hearted", recounting Phelps's interaction with young children after practices.
According to an article in The Guardian, Phelps eats around 12,000 kcal each day, or about six times the intake of a normal adult male.Yet according to Michael Phelps in an interview with 60 minutes, the estimate given by the Guardian is "not true" and he states he eats 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day when training.
Throughout the 2008 Olympics, Phelps was questioned by the press if perhaps his feats were "too good to be true", a reference to unsupported rumors that Phelps may be taking performance enhancing drugs. In response, Phelps noted that he had signed up for Project Believe, a project by the United States Anti-Doping Agency in which U.S. Olympians can volunteer to be tested in excess of the World Anti-Doping Agency guidelines.During the Games, Phelps was tested nine times, and passed all of them.
Phelps idolized Australian Ian Thorpe as a teenager, modelling his public image after Thorpe, and later watched videos to try to emulate the Aussie's famous six-beat underwater dolphin kick off the turns. Phelps, who finished third behind Thorpe in the 200m freestyle at the 2004 Athens Olympics, had unsuccessfully tried to lure the Australian out of retirement in 2007 saying "I like to race him".Thorpe initially said it was highly unlikely for Phelps to win eight gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.His remarks were supposedly used by Phelps who stuck them on his locker as motivation during these Games. Thorpe was in the stands for the Men's 4 x 100 metre medley relay, where Phelps was swimming for his eighth Olympic title. When Phelps and his teammates captured the gold, Thorpe gave a congratulatory kiss to Phelps' mother, then gave a handshake and a hug to congratulate Phelps. Thorpe afterwards said "I'm really proud of him not just because he won eight golds. Rather, it's how much he has grown up and matured into a great human being. Never in my life have I been so happy to have been proved wrong. I enjoyed every moment of it".
CAREER
Early years
As a young teenager, Phelps trained at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club under coach Bob Bowman. At the age of 15, Phelps competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, becoming the youngest American male swimmer at an Olympic Games in 68 years. While he did not win a medal, he did make the finals and finished fifth in the 200 metre butterfly. Phelps proceeded to make a name for himself in swimming shortly thereafter. Five months after the Sydney Olympics, Phelps broke the world record in the 200 m butterfly to become, at 15 years and 9 months, the youngest man ever to set a swimming world record. He then broke his own record at the World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan by posting a time of 1:54.58. At the 2002 Summer Nationals in Fort Lauderdale, Phelps also broke the world record for the 400 metre individual medley and set American marks in the 100 metre butterfly and the 200 metre individual medley.
In 2003, Phelps broke his own world record in the 400 metre individual medley (4:09.09) and in June, he broke the world record in the 200 m individual medley (1:56.04). Then on July 7, 2004, Phelps broke his own world record again in the 400 m individual medley (4:08.41) during the U.S. trials for the 2004 Summer Olympics.
In 2004, Phelps left North Baltimore Aquatic Club with Bob Bowman to train at the University of Michigan for Club Wolverine.
2000 Sydney Summer Olympic Games : 200 m Butterfly 5th place 01:56.50
2004 Athens Summer Olympic Games :
400 m individual medley- Gold Medal,- World Record 4:08.26
100 m butterfly- Gold Medal,- Olympic Record 51.25
200 m freestyle- Bronze Medal,- American Record 1:45.32
200 m butterfly- Gold Medal,- Olympic Record 1:54.04
200 m individual medley- Gold Medal,- Olympic Record 1:57.14
4 x 100 m freestyle relay- Bronze Medal- 3:14.62
4 x 200 m freestyle relay- Gold Medal,- American Record 7:07.33
4 x 100 m medley relay- Gold Medal,- World Record 3:30.68
Phelps's dominance brought comparisons to former swimming great Mark Spitz,[46] who won seven gold medals in the 1972 Su
mmer Olympics, a world record. Phelps tied Mark Spitz's record of four gold medals won in individual events. Phelps had the chance to break Spitz's record of seven total gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics by competing in eight swimming events (five of which were individual events): the 200 m freestyle, the 100 m butterfly, the 200 m butterfly, the 200 m individual medley, the 400 m individual medley, the 4x100 m freestyle relay, 4x200 m freestyle relay, and the 4x100 m medley relay. However, his 4x100 m freestyle relay team only won the bronze medal, and he personally placed for bronze in the 200 m freestyle. Thus, he fell short of Spitz's record. However, he did win eight medals in one Olympics, a feat only previously achieved by Alexander Dityatin, a gymnast, in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Phelps would later equal this record (and break Spitz's) with his eight gold medals in the 2008 Olympic Games.Had he won seven golds in 2004, he would have been eligible for a US$1 million bonus from his sponsor, Speedo.Phelps did, however, earn this $1 million by winning eight golds at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
On August 14, 2004 he won his first Olympic gold, in the 400 m individual medley, setting another new world record (4:08.26).
On August 16, he finished third behind Australian winner Ian Thorpe and the Dutch Pieter van den Hoogenband in 200 m freestyle final, called the race of the century.Thorpe, upon hearing of the bonus from Speedo, was adamant that eight golds was impossible. Although this race ended the chance to match Spitz's record, Phelps had savored the challenge even though it was not his strongest event, saying "How can I be disappointed? I swam in a field with the two fastest freestylers of all time".
The 100 butterfly was Phelps' seventh medal and fifth gold, which was also his fourth gold in an individual event. That matched Mark Spitz's four solo golds in 1972. No other male swimmer ever claimed more than two individual golds in a single Olympics.
On August 20, 2004 in the 100 m butterfly final, Phelps defeated American teammate Ian Crocker (who holds the world record in the event) by just 0.04 seconds. Traditionally, the Olympian who places highest in an individual event will be automatically given the corresponding leg of the 4 x100 m medley relay. This gave Phelps an automatic entry into the medley relay but he deferred and Crocker swam instead. Crocker had made a mistake during his leg of the 400 freestyle relay final, which cost the Americans gold, so Phelps' gesture gave Crocker a chance to make amends as well getting his final shot at a gold medal.The American medley team went on to win the event in world record time, and, since Phelps had raced in a preliminary heat of the medley relay, he was also awarded a gold medal along with the team members that competed in the final.
YEAR 2004 - 2008
Phelps moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan following the 2004 Olympics when his longtime coach at the North Baltimore Athletic Club, Bob Bowman, became head coach of the University of Michigan swimming team. Phelps served as a volunteer assistant coach, but did not swim for the university's team in NCAA competition because of his loss of amateur status, having accepted endorsement money from his sponsors Speedo, Visa, Omega and PowerBar. Instead, he trained with and competed for Club Wolverine, a USA Swimming club affiliated with the university, between 2004 and 2008. The Baltimore Sun said in August 2008 that Phelps earns $5 million annually in endorsements. Unknown to many, Phelps has penned two books. His second book, No Limits: The Will to Succeed, was released on December 9, 2008.
He co-founded the "Swim with the Stars" program, along with Ian Crocker and Lenny Krayzelburg, a program which promotes swimming and conducts camps for swimmers of all ages.
He competed in the 2005 World Championships, winning six medals, (five gold and one silver) and breaking one Championship record.
2007 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
At the 2007 World Championships,[56] Phelps won seven gold medals, tying the record, and broke five world records. The 4x100 m medley relay team he would have competed with in the final received a disqualification for a false start during a changeover in the heats.[57]
Event Results Time
200 m freestyle - Gold Medal, World Record 1:43.86
100 m butterfly - Gold Medal 50.77
200 m butterfly -Gold Medal, World Record 1:52.09
200 m individual medley -Gold Medal, World Record 1:54.98
400 m individual medley- Gold Medal, World Record 4:06.22
4 x 100 m freestyle relay -Gold Medal, Championship Record 3:12.72
4 x 200 m freestyle relay -Gold Medal, World Record 7:03.24
4 x 100 m medley relay - Did Not Compete (team disqualified in earlier heat)
2008 BEIJING SUMMER OLYMIC GAMES
Phelps represented the United States at the 2008 Summer Olympics. He qualified to compete in three team and five individual events, swimming seventeen races in nine days and winning the gold medal in all eight events:
August 10 400 m individual medley - Gold Medal, -World Record 4:03.84
August 11 4 x 100 m freestyle relay -Gold Medal, -World Record 3:08.24
August 12 200 m freestyle -Gold Medal, -World Record 1:42.96
August 13 200 m butterfly -Gold Medal, -World Record 1:52.03
August 13 4 x 200 m freestyle relay - Gold Medal, -World Record 6:58.56
August 15 200 m individual medley- Gold Medal, -World Record 1:54.23
August 16 100 m butterfly - Gold Medal, -Olympic Record 50.58
August 17 4 x 100 m medley relay -Gold Medal, -World Record 3:29.34
Phelps set an Olympic record in the preliminary heats of the men's 400-meter individual medley. He followed that up in the final by winning the gold medal, as well as breaking his previous world record by nearly two seconds.
Phelps swam the first leg of the men's 4x100 m freestyle relay in a time of 47.51 seconds (an American record for the 100 m freestyle), and won his second gold medal of the 2008 Olympics, as well as setting his second world record of the Olympics (3:08.24). Teammate Jason Lezak, after beginning the anchor leg more than half a body length behind Alain Bernard, managed to finish ahead of the second-place French team by eight hundredths of a second. The top five teams in the final finished ahead of the world record of 3:12.23 set the day before by the American B team in a preliminary heat.
For his third race, Phelps broke his previous World Record in the 200-meter freestyle by nearly a second and won his third gold medal. He also set his third world record at the Olympics, 1:42.96, winning by nearly two seconds over silver medalist Park Tae-hwan.In this race, Phelps became only the fifth Olympic athlete in modern history to win nine career gold medals, along with Mark Spitz, Larissa Latynina, Paavo Nurmi, and Carl Lewis.
The next day, Phelps participated in two finals. In his first event, the 200-meter butterfly, Phelps made it four gold medals and world records in four events by swimming the final in 1:52.03, defeating silver medalist László Cseh by almost seven-tenths of a second despite his goggles filling up with water and being unable to "see anything for the last 100 meters." This fourth gold medal was his tenth, and made him the all-time leader for most Olympic gold medals won by an individual in the modern Olympic era. Less than one hour after his gold medal victory in the 200-meter butterfly, Phelps swam the lead-off leg of the 4 x 200-meter freestyle relay. He won his fifth gold and set his fifth world record as the American team finished first with a time of 6:58.56. The Americans were the first team to break the seven-minute mark in the relay, and broke the previous record, set in Melbourne, Australia, by more than four and a half seconds.
After taking a day off from finals (Phelps did swim in qualifying heats), Phelps won his sixth gold of the Beijing Games on August 15 by winning the 200-meter individual medley with a World Record time of 1:54.23, finishing ahead of Cseh by over two seconds.
On August 16, Phelps won his seventh gold medal of the Games in the men’s 100-meter butterfly, setting an Olympic record for the event with a time of 50.58 seconds and edging out his nearest competitor, Serbian-American swimmer Milorad Čavić, by 1/100 of a second. Unlike all six of his previous events in the 2008 Games, Phelps did not set a new world record, leaving Ian Crocker’s world record time of 50.40 seconds, set in 2005, intact. Phelps’s 0.01-second finish ahead of Čavić prompted the Serbian delegation to file a protest; however, subsequent analysis of the video by the FINA panel, which required analyzing frames shot 1/10000 of a second apart, confirmed Phelps’s victory. The initial refusal by official timekeeper Omega, to release underwater photos of the finish also raised questions due to Phelps's sponsorship relationship with Omega. Čavić later wrote in his blog: "People, this is the greatest moment of my life. If you ask me, it should be accepted and we should move on. I’ve accepted defeat, and there’s nothing wrong with losing to the greatest swimmer there has ever been".
Phelps’s seventh gold medal of the Games tied Mark Spitz’s record for gold medals won in a single Olympic Games, set in the 1972 Olympics. It was also his fifth individual gold medal in Beijing, tying the record for individual gold medals at a single Games originally set by Eric Heiden in the 1980 Winter Olympics and equaled by Vitaly Scherbo at the 1992 Summer Games. Said Phelps upon setting his seventh-straight Olympic record of the Games in as many events, "Dream as big as you can dream, and anything is possible ... I am sort of in a dream world. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure it is real."
On August 17, Phelps won his eighth gold medal in the men’s 4 × 100-meter medley relay, breaking Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals won in a single Olympic Games, which had stood since 1972. Phelps, along with teammates Brendan Hansen, Aaron Peirsol, and Jason Lezak, set a new world record in the event with a time of 3 minutes and 29.34 seconds, 0.7 seconds ahead of second-place Australia and 1.34 seconds faster than the previous record set by the United States at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. When Phelps dived in to swim the 100-meter butterfly leg, the third leg of the 400-meter medley, the United States had been trailing Australia and Japan. Phelps completed his split in 50.1 seconds, the fastest butterfly split ever for the event, giving teammate Jason Lezak a more than half-second lead for the final leg, which he would hold onto to clinch the event in world record time. Said Phelps, upon completing the event that awarded him his eighth gold medal and eighth Olympic record in as many events, "Records are always made to be broken no matter what they are ... Anybody can do anything that they set their mind to."
In an article published in the wake of the event, The New York Times noted that, in the hours before his eighth and final event in the 2008 Games, had Michael Phelps been a country, "the Person’s Republic of Michael would have ranked fourth in gold medals [after China, the United States, and Germany] and been ahead of all but 14 countries in the medal count". Only Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina holds more total career Olympic medals with 18 (nine gold), compared to Phelps's 16 (14 gold).
HONORS AND AWARDS
* World Swimmer of the Year Award: 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008
* American Swimmer of the Year Award: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008
* Golden Goggle Male Performance of the Year: 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008
* Golden Goggle Relay Performance of the Year: 2006, 2007, 2008
* Golden Goggle Male Athlete of the Year: 2004, 2007, 2008
* ESPY Best Olympic Performance: 2005
* USOC SportsMan of the Year Award: 2004, 2008
* USSA Athlete of the Year Award: 2003
* World Championships Swimmer of the Meet: 2003
* James E. Sullivan Award: 2003
* Teen Choice Awards - Male Athlete: 2005
* Laureus World Sports Sportsman of the Year Award (Nominated): 2004, 2005, 2008
* USA Olympic Team Member: 2000, 2004, 2008
* Sports Illustrated Sportsmen of the Year: 2008
* Holds the record for most Olympic gold-medals: 14
* Holds the record for most Olympic gold-medals in individual events: 9
* Holds the record for most Olympic gold-medals at a single games: 8 (Beijing 2008)
* Street in his hometown of Baltimore was re-named The Michael Phelps Way: 2004
US NATIONAL TITLES
With 38 national titles as of 2007[update], Phelps is beginning to approach the record of 48 held by Tracy Caulkins.
Meters Nationals (38+5):
50 m free (1): '07 SCN
100 m free (4): '07 WIN, '05 SPG, '04 SPG, '03 SUM
200 m free (7): '07 SUM (US), '06 SUM, '05 SUM, '05 SPG, '04 SPG, '03 SUM (AR), '03 SPG
400 m free (2): '05 SPG, '03 SUM (AR)
100 m back (1): '07 SUM (US)
200 m back (4): '07 SUM (US), '04 SPG, '03 SUM, '03 SPG
100 m fly (7): '07 SUM, '06 SUM, '05 SPG, '04 SPG (US), '03 SPG, '02 SUM (AR), ’01 SUM
200 m fly (4): '06 SUM, '05 SUM, '02 SUM (US), '01 SPG (WR)
200 m IM (6): '06 SUM, '05 SPG, '04 SPG, '03 SUM (WR), '02 SUM (AR), ’01 SUM
400 m IM (2): '06 SUM, '02 SUM (WR)
4 x 100 m medley (2): '07 SUM, '06 SUM
4 x 100 m free (2): '07 SUM, '05 SUM
4 x 200 m free (1): '05 SUM (US)
Yards Nationals (2+1):
100 yd free (1): '07 SCYN
200 yd free (1): '07 SCYN
4 x 200 yd (180 m) free (1): '07 SCYN (AR)
* Relays do not count as individual national titles.
* USA Swimming is currently in the process of moving away from having two National Championships per year to only one. As a result, he has not and may not attend many more Spring Nationals.
WORLD RECORDS
1 200 m Butterfly 1:54.92 Austin, Texas, US 2001, March 30
2 200 m Butterfly 1:54.58 Fukuoka, Japan 2001, July 24
3 400 m Individual Medley 4:11.09 Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, US 2002, August 15
4 4x100 m Medley Relay[a] 3:33.48 Yokohama, Japan 2002, August 29
5 400 m Individual Medley 4:10.73 Indianapolis, Indiana, US 2003, April 6
6 200 m Individual Medley 1:57.94 Santa Clara, California, US 2003, June 29
7 200 m Butterfly 1:53.93 Barcelona, Spain 2003, July 22
8 200 m Individual Medley 1:57.52 Barcelona, Spain 2003, July 24
9 100 m Butterfly 0:51.47 Barcelona, Spain 2003, July 25
10 200 m Individual Medley 1:56.04 Barcelona, Spain 2003, July 25
11 400 m Individual Medley 4:09.09 Barcelona, Spain 2003, July 27
12 200 m Individual Medley 1:55.94 College Park, Maryland, US 2003, August 9
13 400 m Individual Medley 4:08.41 Long Beach, California, US 2004, July 7
14 400 m Individual Medley 4:08.26 Athens, Greece 2004, August 14
15 200 m Butterfly 1:53.80 Victoria, British Columbia, Canada 2006, August 17
16 4x100 m Freestyle Relay[b] 3:12.46 Victoria, British Columbia, Canada 2006, August 19
17 200 m Individual Medley 1:55.84 Victoria, British Columbia, Canada 2006, August 20
18 200 m Butterfly 1:53.71 Columbia, Missouri, US 2007, February 17
19 200 m Freestyle 1:43.86 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 2007, March 27
20 200 m Butterfly 1:52.09 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 2007, March 28
21 200 m Individual Medley 1:54.98 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 2007, March 29
22 4x200 m Freestyle Relay[c] 7:03.24 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 2007, March 30
23 400 m Individual Medley 4:06.22 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 2007, April 1
24 400 m Individual Medley 4:05.25 Omaha, Nebraska, US 2008, June 29
25 200 m Individual Medley 1:54.80 Omaha, Nebraska, US 2008, July 4
26 400 m Individual Medley 4:03.84 Beijing, China 2008, August 10
27 4x100 m Freestyle Relay 3:08.24 Beijing, China 2008, August 11
28 200 m Freestyle 1:42.96 Beijing, China 2008, August 12
29 200 m Butterfly 1:52.03 Beijing, China 2008, August 13
30 4x200 m Freestyle Relay 6:58.56 Beijing, China 2008, August 13
31 200 m Individual Medley 1:54.23 Beijing, China 2008, August 15
32 4x100 m Medley Relay 3:29.34 Beijing, China 2008, August 17
MICHAEL PHLEPS : A QUICK LOOK AND COMMENTS
In the water, Michael Phelps is without peer. On land, he's made splashes for the wrong reasons. Given the stratospheric heights to which he climbed during the Beijing Olympics last summer (8 gold medals, 8 races) Phelps' stock had nowhere to go but down. And it plunged precipitously Feb. 1, when a photograph surfaced in Britain's News of the World depicting the aquatic golden boy taking a bong hit. Phelps was contrite, and chalked up the incident, which the newspaper said occurred during a visit to the University of South Carolina in November, to a lapse of judgment. It's not his first youthful indiscretion, however: Just months after racking up six gold medals during the 2004 Olympics in Athens, the 19-year-old superstar was charged with driving while intoxicated.
By Alice aprk:TIME
The biggest challenge Michael Phelps, 23, will face in Beijing will be the clock. And not the one at the pool. With all the final races in swimming moving from their traditional evening time slots to refreshing dips first thing in the morning, Phelps' thorniest adversary will be the alarm clock. "I am far, far from being a morning person," he admits. "If I have a workout at 7:30 a.m., I'm hitting the snooze button at 6:50." Still, even the rise-and-shine races, scheduled for prime-time U.S. television, aren't likely to slow Phelps down. In Beijing, he is again on the blocks to swim up to eight events, giving him another chance to surpass Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals at a single Games.
What keeps him so fast in the water? Part of it is technique: he rarely misses a practice, although he may not always be eager to get out of bed for one. Part of it is his remarkable ability to recover quickly from intensive workouts. Hardworking muscles release lactic acid, which causes soreness. But Phelps' body can flush out lactic acid in minutes vs. the hour or two it takes the bodies of most athletes. Finally, there are the 80-in. wingspan and size-14 feet to propel him through the water.
Which means that as long as he wakes up on time, the race for gold could be over early.
BUILT FOR SPEED
Even before a single Olympic medal has been hung around his neck, Michael Phelps is rewriting the manual on what it means to be a world-class swimmer. Entered in five individual events and a candidate for each of the three relay races in Athens, Phelps has the potential to win eight gold medals, and eclipse the standard held by Mark Spitz, who won seven golds in 1972. It's a long shot, but no one is better prepared to do it. Just 19, Phelps holds the world record in three of those five individual events and is a fingernail's distance from the record in a fourth.
In a sport in which most athletes would be happy to qualify for one event, that he can try for eight medals is amazing. Trained in the individual medley, an event that requires mastery of all four swimming strokes, Phelps possesses a phenomenal ability to compete with the best specialists in three of those strokes--butterfly, backstroke and freestyle. In the fourth, the breaststroke, he's merely outstanding. In fact, at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials last month, Phelps became the first swimmer to qualify for six individual events. (He will drop the 200 backstroke in Athens.) "He is really redefining our expectations of swimming excellence," says Pablo Morales, a two-time Olympian in the butterfly and Phelps' role model. "He is blazing his own trail now, and there is probably a whole global army of young swimmers who are looking up to him."
His talent in the pool propelled Phelps to turn pro at age 16, before graduating from high school. He is an anomaly in the swimming world, a multimillionaire with endorsements from Speedo, Argent Mortgage, Visa, Omega, AT&T Wireless and PowerBar. If he equals Spitz's haul of seven golds from a single Games, Phelps will earn an automatic $1 million bonus from Speedo.
Money isn't enough, though. Phelps wants to make swimming matter. He sees the attention that Americans lavish on their swimmers every four years evaporate between Games, and he desperately wants what Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe has--the prestige, the celebrity and, not least of all, the marketing clout to stand, here in the U.S., with the best athletes. "People don't think about swimmers when they look for athletes to sponsor," he says with some frustration. "You don't see a swimmer doing a Sprite commercial. We have so many other sports to take [people's attention] away from swimming. But if something good happens this summer, that may change."
Phelps' biggest impediment on the way to swimming history may well be his own teammates, many of them Olympic medalists and world-record holders. And then there are the Australians, with a younger and deeper men's team that would dearly love to grind the Americans into chum. They are eager to write the coda to their 4 x 100-m medley-relay defeat in Sydney, where U.S. swimmer Gary Hall Jr. had claimed that the Americans would "smash [the Australians] like guitars." The Aussies won the next two relays, on the back of Thorpe, and mockingly played air guitar in a pool-deck celebration. The first stanzas of their Greek chorus have begun; Thorpe has called Phelps' attempt at a Spitzian haul of golds "ridiculous." Phelps' response: "He's saying he doesn't think it's possible for him to do that. I don't think I would say it's impossible." If that were any frostier, they'd have to speed skate to settle it.
Although Phelps is clearly the standout star in a bright galaxy of American swimmers, some of his teammates bristle at the recognition he receives. The U.S. men's team boasts world-record holders in seven events--Phelps in the 200m and 400m individual medleys and the 200m butterfly, Brendan Hansen in the 100m and 200m breaststrokes, Aaron Peirsol in the 200m backstroke and Ian Crocker in the 100m butterfly. Peirsol and Crocker have beaten Phelps to the wall this year, and Crocker famously halted Phelps' run at a perfect six golds and six world records at the 2003 world championships. "I don't think anyone holds any ill will or anything, and Michael certainly deserves the attention he is getting," says Peirsol. "But this is one of the best teams that the U.S. has sent to the Olympics, so I hope everybody on this team gets the credit they deserve." Phelps won't be racing Peirsol in the backstroke at the Olympics, but he will face Crocker in the 100 fly. "If Michael wants to [beat Spitz's record], he's going to have to do it himself," says Crocker. "I'm definitely not giving any favors."
It's the same tension that Thorpe and his teammates have been grappling with since the Australian catapulted to stardom in the run-up to Sydney. Thorpe's status has isolated him from the camaraderie of the swimming circle, and inevitable jealousies have erupted over his special status. "We have never had a Michael Phelps before," notes Rowdy Gaines, a triple gold medalist in 1984. "He can swim a lot of events, and that can create a lot of jealousy." Phelps does not sound all that bothered. "If it comes up, it comes up," he responds with typical teenage aplomb. "I'll just deal with it."
Growing up with two sisters who swam competitively, Phelps was practically raised at the pool. "The summer he was born was the summer I started swimming," says his oldest sister Hilary, 26. "The poor kid was always getting dragged to the pool." His mother Debbie remembers bringing baby Michael along in a carrier and parking him on the pool deck during his sisters' practices. When he was 7, Phelps learned to swim, but it took weeks before he could do anything more than the backstroke. "I was afraid to put my head underwater," he admits.
Once he did, his talent surfaced almost immediately. Swimming with the North Baltimore Aquatic Club at age 11, he set a national record for his age group in the 100m butterfly. That caught the attention of Bob Bowman, then an assistant coach at the club. "What I noticed about him was that he was fiercely competitive in everything he did, whether it was swimming a race or playing a game at the pool," he says. "He always wanted to win." Bowman called Phelps' parents in for a meeting, alerting them to their son's potential, and in 1996 laid out a 15year plan that would include Phelps' being a part of the 2004, 2008 and 2012 U.S. Olympic teams. "I'm thinking, This man is crazy," Debbie recalls. "This is my 11year-old baby, and you're projecting 2012?"
Bowman could see that Phelps was born to swim. Blessed with a sinewy, whiplike body, a long torso and large hands and feet, plus a 6ft. 7in. arm span that extends 3 in. beyond his height (the usual ratio is 1 to 1), Phelps has as close to an ideal swimming body as you can get. Like other top swimmers, he doesn't so much power through the water as slide along it, propelled by a vigorous dolphin kick that surges from his head to his toes in a high-amplitude wave.
Capitalizing on that, Bowman tried Phelps in other strokes and found that the gangly teen was a quick learner with an uncanny feel for the water. Still, Phelps says, "he took every single stroke and changed it. From Day One, he wanted me to swim multiple events." That meant an early focus on the individual medley--the grueling test of all four strokes, which Phelps picked up with little argument.
The teen did balk, though, when Bowman tried to fix his starts and turns, the one area in which Phelps falters. In a sport measured in hundredths of a second, getting a smooth start can mean a world record; not wasting time at the wall can separate medal winners from also-rans. Phelps hasn't perfected his turns, says Bowman, because he is simply too good a swimmer. "He'd think, I'll just swim a little harder, and then say, 'That was a best time. How can you complain about that?'"
As his swimming was taking shape, though, Phelps' family was breaking up. The same year he learned to swim, Debbie, a Baltimore County school administrator, and Frank, a Maryland state trooper, decided to divorce. The couple had built a home on a fiveacre spread in Harford County, Md., more than 60 miles from the Baltimore pool where their children were training. The round-trip drives, sometimes twice a day, were wearying. Debbie wanted to move the family to Baltimore; Frank wasn't so sure. It was one more issue in a deteriorating relationship. Phelps and his sisters remained with their mother, and when Hilary and Whitney moved away for college, his bond with his mom deepened.
She's sensitive to his growing celebrity and the jealousies that can flower in his classmates and is vigilant almost to a fault. "When he went to a dance in high school, for example, I would tell him, 'Michael, please be careful. If you put your glass down, don't pick it back up'--things like that," she says, fearing everything from recreational drugs to banned substances. "It makes me sound like a nagging mother, but I always try to keep 10 steps ahead of him." Says Phelps: "We've gotten so much closer over the past few years because it's only been us. She's loosened up a bit. I guess you could say she's sort of like a chill mom." Last Christmas Phelps surprised her with a new Mercedes, and this spring he bought her diamond earrings for her birthday. Phelps is not nearly so close to his father. "I wouldn't say it's necessarily a bad relationship, but I wouldn't say it's the best relationship. And the way my life is right now, I wouldn't want anything to change."
In Bowman's grand plan, Phelps would have watched--not participated in--the 2000 Olympics, but Phelps' butterfly had progressed so quickly, the pair found themselves at the Olympic trials. By the fourth day, Phelps had earned a berth to Sydney.
The youngest member of the swimming contingent, at 15, Phelps finished fifth in the only event he raced, the 200m butterfly, and vowed that the next time he went to the Games, he would not leave without a gold. "I was disappointed walking away from Sydney with nothing," he says. "People were saying [fifth is] good, and I was saying, 'No, it's not. I want more.' It's something that's been with me ever since."
Like most 19-year-olds, Phelps has stuck on his wall, in a prominent spot right next to his bed, a picture of a fit figure in a bathing suit. But this being the ultrafocused Phelps, don't expect the latest beauty from the SPORTS ILLUSTRATED swimsuit issue. Instead, it's rival Ian Crocker celebrating his world record in the 100m butterfly at the 2003 world championships--and his win over Phelps. That's the image that gets Phelps up at 6 a.m. every day and into the pool. "After losing the 100 butterfly at world's, I was even more motivated to train every day and get faster," says Phelps. "I hate to lose. I absolutely hate to lose. I can't stand it."
In a way, Phelps makes it easy for Bowman, because getting the teen to the pool to log seven miles a day, 365 days a year ("Christmas morning, I'm at the pool," notes Phelps), is never a problem. Money, malice (in the form of taunts from competitors) and missteps--"He turns anything into a reason to work harder," says Bowman. "I call him the motivation machine."
While training for the world championships last year, Phelps received an unexpected kick from Thorpe's coach, who asserted that Phelps was not in the same league as Thorpe. Bowman slipped a copy of the comment into Phelps' mailbox at the pool. His response was devastating: he broke five world records; Thorpe broke none. "It's lunacy to give Michael any ammunition whatsoever," says Olympian Gaines. "He thrives on confidence. Giving him more fuel in the way of criticism is suicidal when it comes to swimming against him."
Phelps will rely on that competitive fever, so prevalent in Sydney, for his 200m freestyle race against the Thorpedo. He is not the favorite, and it's probably his longest shot for a gold--or even a medal--against the Aussie. The two swam against each other at the world championships in the 200 individual medley, which Phelps won by 3.62 sec. But this event would be the first head-to-head freestyle race between today's two greatest swimming talents, and Phelps welcomes the challenge. "I love to race the best, and I've never faced him in the 200 freestyle," he says of Thorpe. "It's something I've always wanted to do." When Bowman suggested scratching the event from his program in Athens, Phelps said, "Absolutely not."
It will be another first--two millionaire swimmers in a duel at the pool. Can't you just see a million-dollar, winner-take-all rematch during half time at the Super Bowl? Phelps has indeed changed swimming. So, yes, Michael--we are likely to be paying attention, well beyond the Olympics.
FACTS ABOUT MICHAEL PHLEPS
- In 2001, at age 15, Michael became the youngest world record holder in swimming’s modern history.
- At the World Championships in 2003, Michael became the first man ever to set two world records in two different events on the same day: 51.47 seconds in the 100-meter butterfly and 1:56:04 in the 200-meter individual medley.
- In 2003, Michael won the Sullivan Award as the nation’s best amateur athlete. The last swimmer to be so honored was Janet Evans in 1989.
- After the 2004 Olympics, the city of Baltimore named a street after Michael.
- Michael won five gold medals at the 2005 World Championships. He won five more at the 2006 Pan Pacifics, setting a world record in the 200 individual medley along the way.
- At the 2007 World Championships, Michael became the only swimmer other than Mark Spitz to win seven times in a major meet. Spitz won seven times in the 1972 Olympics, but only swam breaststroke and butterfly. Michael swam four different strokes.
- Because of his endorsement deals, Michael was not allowed to compete at the NCAA level. Instead, between 2004 and 2008, he trained with and competed for Club Wolverine, a USA Swimming club affiliated with the University of Michigan.
- A popular topic of conversation during the 2008 Olympics was the high-calorie diet Michael consumed. His caloric intake ranges between 10,000 and 12,000 a day.
- Michael still has a reason to return to the Olympics in 2012. His 16 medals leave him second all-time to Soviet gymnast Laryssa Latynina, who won 18 in the 1960s and 1970s
- Michael’s first year at the University Michigan was his first living by himself. Among the domestic disasters that befell him was a kitchen full of suds—he filled his dishwasher with hand-washing soap.
- The first time Michael heard about Mark Spitz was after his 16th birthday. His mother, by contrast, has been a big fan of his since childhood. A framed poster of the swimmer hung in her family’s home.
- Michael has won the Kiphuth Award as the best swimmer at the U.S. Summer Nationals three years running (2001, 2002 and 2003). The award is given in honor of former Yale swim coach Bob Kiphuth.
- Michael listens to rap music before races. His favorite artist is Eminem, and he gets pumped up by DMX's "Party Up" and MAC 10's "Connected for Life."
- Among Michael’s favorites are: football (sport to watch), basketball (sport to play), Baltimore Ravens (pro team), SportsCenter (tv show), Denzel Washington (actor), Cameron Diaz (actress), Michael Jordan (athlete) and To Kill a Mockingbird (book). He’s also likes video games, including NHL HITZ.
- Michael is a huge fan of the late Chris Farley. He can recite every line from the movie “Tommy Boy.”
- Michael’s nickname is “Iron Mike.”
- One of Michael’s heroes is Pablo Morales, the 1992 Olympic champion in the 100m butterfly.
- Michael drives a used Cadillac Escalade. He customized it with a stereo system, three TVs and an X-Box. He bought a Mercedes-Benz ML320 SUV for his mother.
- Michael once met Cindy Crawford. He was so nervous he could barely speak.
- Michael is a national spokesman for Boys & Girls Clubs of America. He’s also an honorary board member of the Boys & Girl Club of Harford County, Maryland, and Pathfinders for Autism.
- Michael endorses a number of products. His sponsors include Speedo, Kellogg’s, Visa, Omega, Power Bar, and Matsunichi. Prior to the Beijing Olympics, Michael made an estimated $5 million annually in endorsement money. Michael’s appearance fee starts at $15,000.
