It’s impossible to keep a poker face around Taylor. I’ve had practice. Poker has kind of become my downtime game of choice. Maybe someday when I’m done swimming I’ll play in the World Series of Poker. First I have to work on my poker face. If I just study Herman long enough….
I’m trying to understand more about investments, and I have a financial advisor who handles a lot of my money. One morning, my advisor gave me a chart with my investments, gains, losses, and taxes for the year. I didn’t understand all of it, so I brought it to practice and Bob’s eyes got really big. It was either good news or bad news.
“Well, is it good?” I asked.
“Ah, yeah,” he said. “You made 23 percent.”
I should have waited until after practice. Bob was on my butt all day. No problem, Coach. I’ll teach you about portfolios.
Bob started racing one of his horses, a two-year-old he named Vanderkaay. I needed clarification about the name. Our conversation went something like this:
“Hey, Bob, I’ve been with you longer than Pete. How come you didn’t name a horse after me?”
“Michael, that’s a lot of pressure to put on a horse. That’s a lot to live up to.”
“Bob, it’s a horse. Think he knows the difference?”
“Well, it’s a polite, obedient, well-behaved horse. When I find one who bites me, I’ll call him Phelps.”
“Thanks, Bob.”
The fall wasn’t exactly vacation time, but it was time away from competitions when Bob and I could work on things for the pre-Olympic year. I usually show up just grouchy enough so Bob won’t speak to me for a good half hour. It’s our answer to library time and, believe me, that silence is golden.
I got some disappointing news in November when Ian Thorpe announced his retirement from swimming. I had to be happy for Ian if he was at peace with the decision, but I’ll always regret not having a chance to race him after Athens. He was the champ in the 200 free and I owed him a debt of thanks for being so good in that race and pushing me by setting a standard of exceptional freestyle swimming. When I won that race in Montreal, it wasn’t the same without him and I hoped I’d get to race him on his home soil in Australia.
In order to get ready for the early World Championships in March, we started with competitions in December. I started the season with a thud at the U.S. Open outside Indianapolis. On the first night, I was disqualified for a false start in the 200 back and two days later Club Wolverine’s 400 free relay was DQ’d for the same thing. Two DQs in one meet!
The day after Christmas, we left for an altitude camp in La Loma, Mexico, an isolated place ideal for training. We had breathtaking sunsets and ate eggs at so many meals, I never wanted to see a hen again. With Melbourne Worlds only two months away, Bob wanted me to test my endurance and challenge myself as much as possible. We did that with a new twist at the Southern California Grand Prix, a three-day meet in Long Beach, where the races were contested in yards. The first couple days were fairly standard. On Saturday, I won the 100- and 500-yard freestyles. The next night I won a 400-yard IM and lost to Brendan in a 200 breast, which is definitely his race and a good test for me to see how close I can stay to him. But on Monday, Bob was on brainstorm overdrive, trying to toughen me up as we got ready for Worlds. The meet schedule included 100-meter finals in the butterfly, backstroke, and breaststroke, all within 41 minutes, with world record holders in each event scheduled to swim. That’s three races against a murderer’s row of Crocker, Peirsol, and Hansen, with barely enough time to get out of the pool, get a lactate test and jump back in. “So,” says Bob, “why not race all three of them?” This was an easy call for Bob, since he was easily accessible from Ann Arbor by Blackberry, but not by flung tomatoes or slung torpedoes at poolside.
At 5:45 that night, I jumped in for the fly, finishing in 46.05, well behind Ian, who took it out fast and had me put away at the turn. Then at 6:26, I finished second to Brendan in my worst stroke. Even though the races were in yards, which I don’t swim as often as meters, I still swam best times in the events I didn’t win. Afterward, my legs felt more tired than my arms, but I was happy about the experiment because I knew I felt fit. I called Bob to tell him what happened. He could hear a good energy in my voice, but I still had to give him a little bit of a hard time.
After we discussed race details, he asked, “So, did you miss me over there?”
“Um, no, not really,” I told him. “Stay home anytime.”
Bob was away again for the first part of the Missouri Grand Prix in February, my last meet before Worlds. Jon Urbanchek was there and was doing his best Bowman, firing me up before my first race, the 200 fly. Jon was watching other swimmers lower their PRs and told me it was my turn. I reminded Jon that we still hadn’t started our taper and world records would probably have to wait until next month at Worlds. I was even wearing a goatee and had some long hair sticking out of my cap. “Okay,” he said, “but why not get one tonight anyway?” You can’t argue with Jon. He is as nonconfrontational as Bob can be exacting, combative, a pain in … well, if you ask Jon why he is the way he is, he’ll start talking about butterflies. “Chasing happiness is like chasing a butterfly,” he’ll say. “If you go after it, it will get away from you, but if you wait for it calmly and patiently, it will land on your shoulder.” Of course if you ask Jon about Bob, he’ll tell you, “Bob is the one person who can reach out and snatch the butterfly anyway.” You know, I’ve never heard Bob use a butterfly analogy.
Anyway, Jon was right. I broke the 200 fly world record for the fifth time, lowering the mark to 1:53.71. At first I actually misread the clock and couldn’t understand why the crowd was making so much noise over a 1:57. Then I took a second look and started to celebrate. I was feeling strong and ready to have a great meet in Melbourne. All the weight work, the patience Bob preached about my back, the heavy race load, the great training at Michigan, and the bad taste in my mouth from the last World Championship had me feeling as well prepared for any meet I had ever swum.
And now, I was able to share that feeling as never before. In February, a group of us from the swim community started a cool website called Swimroom. Anyone can join and communicate with each other or some of their favorite swimmers. There are videos, podcasts, forums, places to buy souvenirs, event listings, and regular blogs from a lot of us on the national team. And it isn’t limited to swimmers. Laura Wilkinson, the 10-meter diving gold medalist from Sydney, has a regular blog, too. It’s another great way to help grow the sport and get people psyched up about swimming.
33
ON TOP OF THE WORLDS
I felt great coming into Worlds, knowing that since the last ones in Montreal, I had accomplished the little things I needed to do to get better. As if I needed more motivation, Australian coach Don Talbot, who usually has the words to provide some, told a Melbourne newspaper that Ian Thorpe’s accomplishments still outranked mine. “Thorpe’s still number one in my opinion,” Talbot said. “Phelps doesn’t outdo him yet.”
On the first day of the championships, I led off for our 400 free relay. At most championships I was ready to be shot out of a cannon. I swam an easy leg of 48.42 that gave us a good lead. Neil, Cullen, and Jason, the same three I’d swum with at Pan Pacs, brought us in ahead of the Aussies for our first gold. The result tied me with Ian for most world golds in a career with 11, but I was just happy to get off to a better start than I had in Montreal. At least I swam in a final on the first day this time.
Talbot had more to say: “The Americans want to claim they invented Jesus Christ before he came, and the same with Phelps. They were saying he was the greatest in the world when Thorpey was the thing.” I mean what is up with this guy? I know you want to stick up for your swimmer, but could you say some of these things a little more diplomatically?
My next final was the 200 free, a race in which I had hoped to compete against Ian, because he had won it with such a great swim in Athens. Bob and I had spent a lot of time studying Ian’s techn
ique. We worked on a really effective underwater dolphin kick, which Bob says is a good thing because the more time I spend underwater at practice, the less he has to listen to me. He also spent time correcting what he called “a little gallop” in my technique, which was essentially wasted up-and-down energy. Now was the time to put that extra work to the test.
Pieter van den Hoogenband was in lane four because he had swum the fastest time in the semis and I wanted to get a jump on him. I turned first at 24.17 and 51 flat at the first two walls and each time I could see from lane five that Pieter was barely off my shoulder. I started to open up the lead to four-tenths by the third wall and could sort of hear the crowd start to buzz. On the scoreboard in Melbourne, a superimposed red line followed the race along at world-record pace, so fans could see how close the leader was to breaking the existing mark. The crowd obviously sensed that I was close to Ian’s 1:44.06 mark he had set at the 2001 worlds in Fukuoka, where he and I appeared in the same headlines for the first time.
I had a good turn and lost sight of Pieter, who started to fade on the last lap. I took my goggles off as I hit the wall, looked up to see the time and let out a safari sound effect. There it was: 1:43.86. I knew I had a chance to set records in other races and I felt I could swim a best time in this one, but this was the sweetest individual record I had ever set. As we were waiting for our medals, Pieter told me on the stand he was sure the record would last for a decade and asked me what my PR had been. When I told him 1:45, he rolled his eyes. I had never felt this sharp.
Coming off that race, I was more confident about setting another record in the 200 fly the next night. The funny thing was I had a lousy warm-up. My arms felt sore and I only swam for four laps before jumping out of the warm-up pool. I was hoping I just needed some time to get loose, so I moved around more than usual in the ready room. Maybe it was just nervous energy, but I let it out in the pool. I was about a second ahead at 100 and almost two seconds at 150. Unlike the 200 free, this felt like a record pretty early in the race. I touched in 1:52.09, three seconds ahead of China’s Wu Peng in second and 1.7 seconds better than my race in Victoria.
Wow! 1.7 seconds. I felt giddy. It felt like I was 12 years old, lopping whole seconds off my best times. Back then my safari yells were more like screeches. Even Bob came by and just smiled at me. That’s how good the race was: I shut Bob up. Afterward, Grant Hackett mentioned that I had beaten the red line with my feet. The Herald Sun, Australia’s largest newspaper, ran my picture across the front page with the headline: “Greatest.”
The ease was gone by the next night. I swam the 200 IM against Ryan and Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh, who always gives me a good race. I was half a second ahead of Ryan going into the last leg, the freestyle, when my goggles started sliding off my eyes. I couldn’t see Ryan or Laszlo at all during the freestyle, because my eyes were full of water. Some people thought I was angry because of the way I ripped off my goggles at the finish, but I really just wanted to see the time. It was 1:54.98, .86 seconds better than my time at Pan Pacs. New records, new goggles.
The next day, Bob and I watched a video on the scoreboard of me setting a world record back at the 2001 Worlds. “Wow, how old was I, like 12?” I asked. “More like 10,” Bob answered. I really did a double take looking up and seeing that kid on the screen. At those same championships in Japan, the Aussie 800 free relay team set a world record, 7:04.66, that was still standing. Ryan, Klete, Peter, and I had talked about wanting to wipe it off the books. Our relay selections had been pretty consistent over the past few years, so we had a good feel for competing together, pulling for one another, psyching each other up in ready rooms, getting good exchanges at the turns. We felt confident another record could fall.
We didn’t want to take anything for granted, but with Ian Thorpe retired and Grant Hackett sitting out the final, we were thinking more about that record than about the other teams. I led off and gave us a lead. Ryan and Klete kept just ahead of the red line and Peter started to pull away from the line on the overhead scoreboard. It’s odd to look at that thing, because when you’re in the pool, you can go by feel or the sound of the crowd. Sometimes you hear the announcer call out splits, but you can’t actually see the line. Still, as one of the early legs of the relay, I was able to follow it throughout Peter’s swim. As the line fell past his shoulders, past his back, down to his legs, we started to celebrate. Relays are the best. You don’t have to search for someone to hug and high-five; your teammates are right there. Peter came in at 7:03.24 and we had our world record.
One of the best things about watching TV in my hotel room was the international sports coverage that included programming from ESPN. They may have Australian rules football down under, but I could still get some off-season info on the Ravens, even in Melbourne.
One morning I was watching Around the Horn, an ESPN show in which writers from different parts of the country debate a topic and a moderator awards each of them points based on the strength of their arguments. It’s pretty scripted, since the guys never agree and they pretty much choose opposing viewpoints in order to be controversial and entertaining; but writers can’t score points with the moderators without valid opinions.
On the morning I watched, the topic was actually, well, me. J.A. Adande, one of ESPN’s correspondents, took a favorable stand for me and for the sport of swimming. His opinions started racking up more points than the other writers. I loved where the commentators’ discussion was headed: Were my performances a big deal because of the world records, or did people just not care because swimming wasn’t as popular with the sporting mainstream as baseball, football, or basketball? Could I be as big as Tiger Woods?
It wasn’t so much that they were talking about me, but that they were debating the future of swimming. When I think about changing the sport of swimming, I think about employees standing around the water cooler at work arguing about whether Phelps will beat Crocker or Crocker will beat Phelps. I think about people comparing Spitz to Evans and guessing which world record will fall next. I think about swimming getting mentioned in newscasts, comedy skits, movies, variety shows. I think about it going where it doesn’t normally go. Swimming is huge in Australia, and that’s how I’d like it to be in the U.S.
The big news in the Australian swim world was just hitting. Ian Thorpe had apparently failed a doping test in 2006, when his test showed an elevated level of testosterone. It didn’t make sense. Ian was always very outspoken against doping. He held a press conference to deny wrongdoing. With the respect I had and still have for him and his place in the sport, I could only support him.
I really looked forward to the next showdown against Ian Crocker in the fly. With the Australian Ian retired from swimming, I appreciated having someone to battle in a tough race who could kick my butt if I wasn’t at my best. I swam the semifinal conservatively, but I didn’t like qualifying with only the fourth-fastest time and having to swim in lane six. Ian got out fast, as usual, building a sizeable lead at the turn. Since he was two lanes over, I couldn’t really tell that his 23.56 was that far ahead of me. Way over in lane one, Serbia’s Milorad Cavic was second in 23.61. At 23.99, I was at the head of a tightly bunched trail pack, with fourth through seventh less than a tenth behind me. Because of my 200 fly, I usually finish well in the hundred. I knew I had gained on the field as we came to the finish, but I had no idea if I’d touched before Ian until I looked at the board. I had to look twice before seeing Phelps at 50.77 and Crocker at 50.82. Unlike my other races, this one didn’t send me into a big celebration. Ian and I are such good friends that when he rocks the pool, I want to congratulate him before I deal with my own disappointment. When I do beat him, I respect his disappointment. We patted each other on the head and slowly swam out of the pool.
Afterward, reporters were asking me about making history. With two final swims left on the last night, I had a chance to win eight gold medals. Since the 400 IM was one of my better events and since our medley relay team would be enormous fa
vorites, they talked as if it was in the bag. But I didn’t believe that. I never believe there is something I can’t do if I work at it, but I also don’t take anything for granted. I used the familiar poker analogy that if you’re holding pocket aces, the guy next to you can outdraw you with his seven-deuce. I knew anything could happen the next evening. I didn’t realize that something would actually happen before the late session started.
With the two finals at night, I wasn’t swimming the relay in the morning heats, when our guys just needed to get a qualifying time for the evening final. I won my heat of the 400 IM and thought about the double at night. The guys who had the second-fastest times from our country in the open hundreds of their strokes were set to swim the medley prelims soon after.
Ryan started by giving us a solid 54.07 in the backstroke. Scott Usher jumped in next and gave us an equally good 1:00.84 breaststroke. Ian and Neil followed, getting us what appeared to be the fastest qualifying time. Bob had talked to everyone about getting safe starts, so we wouldn’t risk disqualification, and it seemed like everything had gone according to plan, because the team’s winning time was posted on the board. “No controversy,” Bob remembers saying. “Just the way I like it.” We found out later that Ian had taken off four-hundredths before Scott touched the wall. Rules allow for a gap of three-hundredths, so we were disqualified from the evening final. Everyone felt bad for Ian. Mark Schubert, one of our coaches, went over to console him, because he was pretty down. It could have happened anytime to anyone. What can you say except that we’d get it back in Beijing?
Beneath the Surface Page 26