TRYING to capture the essence of swimmer Michael Phelps is a bit like immersing yourself in the Guinness World Records book. Not the section on amazing sporting achievements – although his cache of 13 Olympic gold medals, more than any other athlete in history, means he will feature prominently there in future editions.
Even more so if, in the early of hours of this morning, the Americans won the 400m medley relay and eclipses Mark Spitz's feat of seven golds in one Games.
No, it is the pages dedicated to anatomical freakery that spring more readily to mind.
You know, the ones that show pictures of the world's longest toenails (actual size).
Ever since Phelps began his astonishing run of success at the Beijing Games – a run which has seen him smash world record after world record and win seven gold medals on the trot – commentators have been reeling off mind-boggling statistics in an attempt to communicate his almost superhuman physique. Did you know, for example, that Phelps's arm span is a staggering 6ft 7in (three inches more than his height); his feet are size 14, and he consumes 12,000 calories day? His unbelievably long torso – which provoked a collective gasp of astonishment when exposed, rippling, on the cover of Time magazine in 2004 – is, according to his coach Bob Bowman, like the hull of a boat, allowing him to ride high on the water. Moreover, his ankles, knees, elbows and shoulders are double-jointed, enabling him to explore positions few others can.
If the world's top scientists had got together to design a body meant for swimming, they could not have come up with a more perfect prototype than Phelps. But there are those who would argue that the American 23-year-old's most mystifying attribute is not physical but psychological: his single-mindedness and unwavering ability to focus. Phelps is a man so driven by his desire to win, he keeps a newspaper clipping of Australian rival Ian Thorpe declaring Spitz's record at the 1972 Olympics in Munich unbeatable stuck to the inside of his locker. Yet at seven, Phelps was on Ritalin for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) after punching another child on a bus, and he only took up swimming as an outlet for his nervous energy.
The way in which he has learned to marshal his mind in the interim is almost as baffling as the way he manipulates water. "Good moods, bad moods, he channels everything for gain," Bowman has said. "He's motivated by success, by failure, by money, by people saying things about him – anything that he turns into a reason to train harder, swim better."
Growing up in Baltimore, Phelps had few of the advantages of Spitz, who enjoyed a privileged childhood in California. At the time when his ADHD was at its worst, his state trooper father Fred and mother Debbie, a school teacher, were in the process of an acrimonious divorce and life was stormy.
Phelps's experience of the pool began when he was still a baby as his older sisters Hilary and Whitney began spending more and more time at North Baltimore Aquatic Centre, using it as a refuge from their unhappy home. "I didn't have to listen to people yelling," Whitney has said. "It was my escape. I took a lot of anger and beat it out – just me and the bottom of the pool."
It soon became clear, however, that the Phelps siblings – and Michael in particular – had a real talent for the sport. Hilary, a distance swimmer, eventually tired of the relentless training, but Whitney, who finished sixth in the 200m butterfly in the 1996 Olympic trials, only gave up after a back injury.
By the time he was 10, Phelps was making his mark nationally and had stopped taking Ritalin. The following year, he teamed up with Bowman, and, by 14, he was marked out for sporting glory. Under Bowman he became a disciple of the FILO school of training (First In, Last Out) and in the three years that followed, he became the youngest person ever to set a world swimming record (at 15 years, nine months), the youngest US male swimmer to turn professional (at 16) and the only swimmer to break five world records in one international meet (at the 2003 world championships in Barcelona). Cheering him on all the way were his mother and his siblings, although relations with his father remained fraught.
Then in 2004 he took the Athens Olympics by storm, winning six gold medals and two bronzes, which tied him with Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin for the most medals of any type in any one Games. Endorsements began to stack up. Omega watches, AT&T, Visa and Matsunischi, a Hong Kong-based electronics company, all wanted him on board. These deals are thought to reap him $5m a year, with Speedo offering him another $1m to equal Spitz's record in Beijing. Such sudden wealth has caused many a young sportsman to self-destruct. And for a brief moment it seemed Phelps might possibly tread that well-worn path. Just months after his triumph at Athens, he was caught drink driving, an offence for which he was fined $250 and given 18 months probation. Later he said it was an "isolated incident" and that he had "let himself down".
Even when there's no major competition in the offing, Phelps' outside interests are few and simple. He has no known girlfriend. He likes playing computer games, walking his bulldog Herman and 'pimping' his Cadillac Escalade with accessories and sound systems. But in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, his life contracted. During peak training periods, he spent six hours a day in the pool, swimming nearly 50 miles a week. The rest of his day was largely devoted cramming in the calories.
In his autobiography, Beneath The Surface, Phelps revealed his average breakfast consists of three fried egg sandwiches, with cheese, lettuce, tomato, fried onions and mayonnaise; an omelette; a bowl of grits; three slices of French toast with powdered sugar and three chocolate chip pancakes. Dinner tends to be half a kilo of enriched pasta, a whole pizza and 1,000 calories of energy drink. Even Phelps's love of rap music is seen primarily as a means of inspiring better performances, with Twista, Jay-Z and Young Jeezy spurring him on in moments of (relative) weakness.
Since the start of the Games, the burden of expectation on Phelps has been enormous, but he has coped with it in his usual way, by repeating his mantra: "Whatever happens, happens." If the Americans win the 400m medley relay in the early hours of this morning (and they've never lost it), Phelps will be hailed as a miracle-maker for matching a record that has not been equalled for 36 years. Indeed, when Spitz himself was asked what it would be like for the record to be broken, he answered: "It would be like the first man on Mars." Even if they don't, Phelps will leave Beijing with more bling than one of his gangsta rap idols.
The full article contains 1197 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
