The next evening I came back for the 200 IM semis and lowered the world record I had set in Santa Clara one month earlier to 1:57.52. The atmosphere was awesome. The pool inside the Palau Saint Jordi arena was temporary, constructed just for the championships. The building itself was originally built for gymnastics events at the Olympic Games in 1992. Swimming was held outdoors during those Games, but not this time. On the side of the arena across from the finish wall they had a huge video scoreboard. At some point, the camera operator found my mother and sister in the stands and he never quite took his eyes off them.
On the scoreboard, I could see my mom and Hilary jumping up and down and hugging. I had proposed to my mom that she should let me get a dog if I broke a world record in Barcelona, so after the race Hilary held up a handmade sign that said simply: Dog? Then I could see my mom put her head in her hands and start laughing, embarrassed that 10,000 people were watching her and she wasn’t aware of it. She would get used to it during the week. Every time I swam, you could almost sense the crowd waiting for the mom and sister shot. Of course, they didn’t know Hilary was my sister. One reporter would later ask me in the press conference if Hilary was my girlfriend. We both took a lot of flak for that one.
A day later, I had another one of those killer doubles—the semis of the 100 fly followed by the finals of the 200 IM, 50 minutes apart. I was in the ready area, waiting for my turn in the second heat of the butterfly, when Andrei Serdinov of Ukraine swam a blistering 51.76 to break the world record in heat one. I was furious. I looked up at Bob who was standing in a runway that overlooked both the pool on one side and the ready room on the other, and I just smirked at him. I was definitely feeling confident about being able to break it back.
I was so fired up that I had to tell myself not to go out too fast. The strategy I discussed with Bob was to go out in control and come home like a madman. I cruised through the first 50 meters, but I felt myself about to explode. I was dead last at the turn and I don’t ever remember even winning a heat against a loaded international field from that far back. But for some reason, I felt really in control. I popped off the wall and just started picking off the field. I hit the last wall feeling as though I had just released a lot of anger, but also as though I still had a lot left. I didn’t expect to see a world record (51.47) on the scoreboard. This time Hilary held up a sign that read: 2 Dogs?
About the same time I slapped my hands against the wall and let my emotions go, a reporter was over in the mixed zone asking Serdinov what it felt like to break his first world record. Before he could answer, the public address announcer shouted out my time, 51.47 seconds. Serdinov never answered the question. His record had lasted about five minutes. I didn’t feel sorry for him because his record was so short-lived; that was the nature of competition. I just didn’t think I’d go through the same thing.
In between races, I got a quick massage, warmed down briefly, ate a Power Bar and had a five or ten minute shake, so I’d be ready for the IM final. I was pumped for this race, because Ian Thorpe had decided to swim the IM and I would finally get a chance to race against him in the final. Granted it wasn’t a freestyle race; this was my event. You’re always protective of yourself and your surroundings, and I thought, hey, he’s coming into my territory now. So there was extra incentive to swim fast. I’m not usually very fast off the blocks, but I got a great start and actually had the fastest reaction time of anyone in the field. I had a good butterfly split (25.29 seconds) that gave me a slight lead over Ian, but I was up by almost two seconds after the backstroke. I increased it to 2.53 after the breaststroke and came home in 1:56.04. Ian took the silver in 1:59.66, two bodylengths back. I was pumping my fists, reveling in the best day of my career and the sight of the two hugging ladies displayed on the scoreboard. Afterwards, Hilary wrote up another sign and held it up. It read: 3 Dogs? I was sensing a pattern. When I got back home later on, my friends and classmates joked with me that my mom and sister had gotten more airtime than I did, so it was also the first time the Phelpses had made a collective appearance on national TV.
I headed upstairs later for a medalists’ press conference with Ian and Italy’s Massi Rossalino, the bronze medalist. A reporter asked about the music I listened to on my headphones as I walked onto the pooldeck. I told them it was from Eminem. The next reporter asked Massi what he would do to try to beat me next time. “The first thing I’m going to do is buy that CD,” he said. “Then I will listen to all the songs to see if one of them can make me swim that fast.” Ian and I were sitting next to each other, joking around about different things when we weren’t answering questions. I took a piece of paper in front of me and scribbled the words: It’s not about the CD. After the interview broke up, several reporters made a mad dash to see what I’d written on the note. After a near pileup at the intersection of Chair and Table, a German radio reporter edged several American counterparts at the finish. Hey, guys … really now, it’s only a note.
Nobody in our family is superstitious. Not at all. It’s a coincidence that once I started swimming well in Barcelona, Hilary wore the same zebra skirt to the pool on consecutive days. She probably wasn’t any more aware of it than I was that I once ate a lifetime’s worth of clam chowder in a week, or that I always swing my arms back and forth when I get on the starting blocks. Well okay, so I asked her to wear the skirt again.
I think if you ask Bob, he’d admit that both of us took the next day for granted. There is a fine line between confidence, which is necessary, and cockiness, which is dangerous. And on the day of the 100-meter butterfly final, both of us crossed over it.
I was over at the practice pool, joking around with Stephen Penfold, one of the Australian freestylers, and I was way too loose. I rarely get on the blocks without some feeling of nerves or a sense that I might give less than my best effort once I hear the starter’s beep. Honestly I was still riding the high from the semis and as strong as I finished, I thought, in my mind, that I could turn on the jets when I needed to. I didn’t feel threatened enough or nervous enough when I jumped on the blocks in Lane 4. In the lane to my left, my teammate Ian Crocker was bouncing on the blocks, with the same sort of reserved emotion I had the night before. His PR up to that point had been the 52.21 he swam in the semis, but he was definitely an outstanding swimmer capable of a much better time.
During the race, I don’t think I paid as much attention to Ian as I should have. He hit the turn in 23.99, well ahead of me at 24.61. I took the result for granted as we hit the wall. I looked up and saw my time, 51.10, which was faster than my world record from the day before. I also glanced at Ian’s time, thought that I had seen a 51.98 next to his name and started pumping my fists. Only after I took off my goggles did I see that I had misread the board. If Ian had been the type to let loose with a big celebration, I might have realized it sooner, but he was smiling, shrugging and throwing his head back in disbelief. The 51.98 was actually 50.98. Not only had Ian won the race; he had broken the world record. Sure, 24 hours is longer than five minutes, but I didn’t want to lose that record. “I’m going to have to look at the tape again,” Ian said later. “I honestly can’t believe it. I had full confidence in myself, but deep down inside you say, hey, that’s Michael Phelps I’m swimming against.” The point was Ian prepared for the race better than I did, he executed better and he deserved the victory and the record more than I did.
After the race, I sat by the side of the pool and Bob talked quietly in my ear for ten minutes so that nobody else could hear. “You need to think about which Michael Phelps they’ll see at the press conference,” he told me. “Are you going to pout or be a champion?” I was looking off into space, because I really didn’t want to talk or listen to anyone at that point. I understood what he said and I knew what my mom had told me about being gracious in defeat. I would never want to embarrass her by saying something I regretted. With that in mind, I handled the press conference pretty easily. I congratulated Ian on a great race, which he deserved, and sa
id he was a real champion, which he was. When I left, Bob lifted my spirits a bit by saying, “Better here than next summer. Remember, you get another chance at it.” Honestly at that point I was still seething inside. But the thought of that other chance would drive me and push me incessantly over the next 12 months.
The next day, a local paper ran the headline Phelps es Humano (Phelps is Human). I was pretty mad after that race and I didn’t feel like swimming the next morning. I had the 400 IM final scheduled for that evening, when I was also expecting to swim the butterfly leg of the 4x100 medley relay. But once Ian beat me in the fly final, that meant that he earned a spot in the final instead of me and I would have to swim the fly leg in the morning semi instead. I just wanted to get out of there, and the coaching staff was willing to let someone else swim the relay prelim, but Bob felt it was my responsibility to swim it as the team’s number-two flier. I swam a decent fly leg and we qualified for the evening swim.
Later that afternoon, Ian Thorpe walked past me near the warm-down pool and wished me luck in the 400 IM. “What are we going to see tonight, 4:08?” Instead, I found myself toughing it out on my last drop of gas. I could feel Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh running me down on the first 50 of the freestyle. This is not good, I told myself. I have to have more in the tank than this. I held him off by 1.7 seconds, but the result felt much closer and the race felt much tougher. I didn’t have the strength to celebrate the 4:09.09 and my fifth world record. I hung on the wall and tried to catch my breath. I had never felt that tired after a big race. A 410-meter IM would probably have done me in. Afterward, Hilary took out one last sign. It read: 5 Dogs?
For the first time since I’d arrived in Barcelona, I was able to enjoy a dinner in the hotel with everyone: Mom, Hilary, Bob, Peter, my aunt and uncle and Gerry Brewster who had made the trip to see me. As we were trying to pull away in our car, some kids were yelling at us in a combination of English and Spanish: “Por favor, please, give something, please, si.” My mom was prepared. She had me sign a bunch of 5x7 cards with my picture on them before we left for Spain. As the kids came up to our car, she started passing out the cards. Mom told me that she had met Margaret Thorpe, Ian’s mother, during one of the sessions, and they each said how much they admired the other’s boy.
18
REACHING OUT
We had more interview requests when we came back from Barcelona. They generally came to Peter and filtered through Bob, who determined what hours I’d be available without disrupting our training. We tried to accommodate as many people as possible, but just as Bob expected a certain commitment from me, he expected reporters who came to Meadowbrook to be professional. If they weren’t, they heard about it.
A few days after we returned, a local affiliate came to the pool to shoot some general footage of our swimmers in training that they could use as background material for a feature piece. They call the footage B-roll, and you see it during interviews when you hear a subject’s voice, while looking at separate footage of what the subject actually does. Bob told the crew they could start filming at 9 a.m., but they actually arrived at 7 to start setting up. When he passed by their camera, he discovered that the camera was on and filming while the crew was waiting in the front hallway. Bob went up to the people and told them simply, “You’re out of here. No interview. No more filming.” A woman on the crew broke down in tears, but they still had to leave.
A few months later another a crew from a different TV station sent what seemed to be a drunken cameraman and a nervous intern to ask the questions. They didn’t conduct themselves well and Bob called the station afterward to leave the message that they shouldn’t send their C team to Meadowbrook.
Bob is pretty firm when he believes in something. I pleaded with him to let me swim the 100 fly at Summer Nationals in College Park, Maryland, right after Worlds. He said no, because he wanted me to improve my range. It was the end of the summer season and I told my friends I didn’t think they’d miss anything by staying away, because I couldn’t see myself breaking a record. But leave it to Bob to give me an unexpected incentive. He agreed that if I could lower my world record from 1:56.04 to anything under 1:56, he would shave his head. I mean, never mind gold medals and million-dollar bonuses; this was a serious prize. This would be my 23rd race in 19 days, but maybe my legs weren’t as tired as I thought.
I feed off the crowd really well and they were screaming after I touched the first wall at 50 meters. I was up by a bodylength and just kept thinking about the soon-to-be-bald eagle. I got to the final wall and saw the 1:55.96 on the board. Then I started punching the water and pointing to my head as I stared at Bob on the side of the deck. It was my seventh world record in 41 days, but when I started running around the pooldeck saying, “It’s gone. It’s gone. It’s so gone,” I wasn’t talking about the record. Who has the scissors? Anybody bring scissors? Where can you get a good pair of scissors when you really need them?
By the end of the meet I had won races in the 200 back and freestyle swims at 100, 200, and 400 meters. I become the first male swimmer to win five U.S. titles at one national championship. But even better, when I got back to Meadowbrook the next day, I could see my reflection on Bob’s forehead.
After Nationals, Bob made sure I went to have my wisdom teeth removed. My dentist had told me almost a year earlier that they might eventually start pressing against the other teeth and that I would have to get them removed. We just wanted to make sure we found a window in the schedule far enough ahead of Olympic Trials to get it done so I didn’t have problems with pain or infection around the most important time of the year.
I had the wisdom teeth taken out in March, and when I woke up, I waddled and stumbled around like a duck. I dozed off during the ride home from the doctor and woke up with a stiff neck from falling asleep with my face against the window. The doctor had given me Percocet to reduce the discomfort, and I was so out of it that at some point during the day, I sent messages to my mom and to Jamie telling them I needed medicine. The messages were so incoherent that they couldn’t read them. When I got home, my mom gave me frozen bags of peas to sleep on. Every 20 minutes or so the bags would start to thaw and I’d have to put a new one on my pillow and give the thawed bag to my mom to put back in the freezer. I had Sony Playstation on for several days and literally never turned it off. Fortunately, I ate what I could and only lost about five or ten pounds. I only missed one day in the water and Bob was understanding when he saw how sluggish I was. Someone suggested to the oral surgeon that I could pay for the procedure by selling the Michael Phelps teeth on eBay. Okay, so now the celebrity thing is officially getting out of hand.
My contract with Speedo was set to run through 2005, but everyone wanted to extend the relationship, because it had been so positive. Peter wanted to generate some buzz with the new agreement not only for me, but also for the sport, but how could he do that when Barry Bonds was making $20 million a year and swimming doesn’t usually draw the attention that some of the four major sports do in the United States? He came up with a somewhat radical proposal for Stu Isaac, who is in charge of Speedo’s team of athletes. If I were to win seven gold medals at either of the next two Olympics, Speedo would pay me a $1 million bonus for equaling Mark Spitz’s record for gold medals at one Olympics set in 1972.
And unlike most contractual provisions, which remain confidential, we decided to talk about this one publicly. Peter knew that this would have a significant publicity impact, but he maintained that an athlete’s endorsement contract should reflect reasonable compensation for whatever value that athlete is able to bring the company. He felt I could achieve some unique things, which would generate value for Speedo, so he wanted to come up with creative and, even extraordinary, performance incentives.
Peter said the timing would be important in introducing this concept to Speedo. He waited until halfway through the meet in Barcelona and called a meeting with Speedo representatives Craig Brommers, who is in charge of Speedo’s marketing, and Stu Is
aac. Peter felt that by then I had achieved enough for them to acknowledge that I was at the highest level of swimming and that, with events remaining, I had potential to accomplish more than what they had encountered before.
After some initial pleasantries, Stu simply asked Peter: “So what do you want?” Peter responded: “A million dollars.” Stu and Craig were silent at first, but Peter explained why he felt this approach was so important and would eventually benefit both Speedo and swimming. Stu and Craig became receptive and everybody worked to finalize the deal. It’s funny, but because only the million-dollar provision was publicized, people assumed that I wouldn’t be paid unless I won a million dollars, which made the story more dramatic. The contract was actually set on a graduated scale, so that I would still earn a bonus for six gold medals or five, for instance, and also for world records. Importantly, it included guaranteed money for the next few years, when I was planning to go to school, live on my own and start saving for the future. But the idea of one million dollars was new to swimming and, we figured, good for swimming. People would talk about the contract. They would mention Speedo. The buzz would give the press an extra incentive to write about swimming in advance of the Olympics, which really carries with it a narrow window out of every four years when people can promote the sport. We knew the chances of winning seven golds, against world competition as deep and balanced as it is these days, would be slim, but not impossible.
Peter and I talked about it and asked ourselves some important questions. Are we setting ourselves up for increased pressure? Yes. Can we handle the pressure? Yes. Will it create a buzz for swimming? Yes. So let’s do it. I knew, at that point, that it would be almost impossible to convince the press that my goal going into the Olympics was to win one gold medal. Can’t shoot for one if you publicize seven. But this was a good opportunity for me, for Speedo, and for swimming.
Beneath the Surface Page 15