No Limits

by Michael Phelps

  When I was twelve, Bob shocked me one day. We were at a meet and he said, Michael, you know what my job is?

  No, I said.

  It’s to get you in the ballpark.

  You know what your job is?

  It’s to get your freaking hand on the wall. And he didn’t say freaking.

  Bob was trying, even then, to drill into my head that a finish was important, that you swim aggressively all the way to the wall. He would not tolerate lazy finishes in practices, ever.

  It all came together that day in 2002. Just hearing Anthony say it made real what Bob had been preaching. If I nailed the touch, it could make all the difference.

  I thought about all of that in Beijing after hustling through my semifinal swim in the 100 fly.

  Milorad Cavic of Serbia looked strong. He and I had been in the same preliminary heat the day before. In that prelim, he had turned first and finished in 50.76, an Olympic record; I was sixth at the turn, a body length behind, but predictably surged the last 50, closing to finish second in 50.87. In the semis, Cavic got through with the fastest time; I was second-fastest; Crocker, since 2003 the world-record holder in the event, was tied for third, with Andrew Lauterstein of Australia, and said, “People point at me, but Cavic is looking good and it’ll be a tight race.”

  The final was indeed going to be tough. I needed to try to be faster in the first 50 and come on even stronger at the finish. The touch might make all the difference.

  • • •

  “On this planet,” a Korean journalist had asked me in a news conference in the middle of my week of racing in Beijing, “is there anybody who can defeat you? And if so, who is it?”

  I laughed and shrugged: “I don’t know.”

  A moment or two later, I said, “I’m not unbeatable. No one’s unbeatable. Everyone can be beaten.”

  Ian Crocker had beaten me before in the 100 fly. And though we had become good friends, he wouldn’t be all broken up if he were to beat me in Beijing. Not in the slightest.

  “Sports is all about one person trying to derail the other person’s dreams,” Crock said. “It’s kind of the dog-eat-dog part of sports. Michael has his goals and I have mine. I’m not going to feel bad if I race my heart out and end up winning.”

  Crock is one of the greatest athletes ever to come out of the state of Maine. And Maine didn’t even have it as good as Suriname when Crock was growing up; in the entire state, there wasn’t one Olympic-sized pool. Instead, Crock spent his first training years swimming in a four-lane, 25-yard pool attached to an elementary school; the pool was also used to provide therapy for the developmentally disabled. As Crock tells the story, their diapers didn’t always work.

  Crock, like me, was diagnosed with a learning disability, in his case attention-deficit disorder. In high school, moreover, he began developing signs of depression; when he went away to college, to Texas, he sought help and was prescribed the antidepression medication Zoloft. Then he was able to kick the medication cold turkey.

  Crock has always been one of the most thoughtful guys out there, a guy with insight and perspective. He has for years had a thing for classic cars; one of the first cars he bought was a 1971 Buick Riviera. He got his first guitar in the eighth grade, for Christmas. Asked to name his favorite Bob Dylan tune, he says it’s like asking him to choose among which of the breaths he has taken over the past twenty-five years. His blog quotes from Steve Earle’s “Fort Worth Blues,” its lines about the highway:

  It’s just the only place a man can go

  When he don’t know where he’s travelin’ to.

  Not surprisingly, Crock has a certain way with words. “The 100 fly is the gift I was given,” he said. “So, you shake your money-maker…and you see what happens.”

  Crock won the 100 fly at the 2000 Trials. In Sydney, he finished fourth, 22-hundredths of a second away from bronze; he also swam the final of the gold medal-winning, world record-setting medley relay. By 2002, I had added the 100 fly to my program; in Fort Lauderdale, I beat him and went under his American record. That set the stage for the next year, and the Worlds in Barcelona.

  In the first of the two semifinals in Spain in 2003, Andriy Serdinov of the Ukraine went 51.76, lowering a world record that had stood for five years. He got to hold the record for as long as it took me to swim the second semi. I went 51.47.

  In the final, I went 51.10. I had lowered the record again. But Crock went 50.98. He was the first man under 51.

  In the warm-down pool, Bob offered a two-part lesson: Let the loss go. And think fast now about how, having come up just short, you’re going to present yourself to reporters. Are you a sore loser? Or are you gracious? Remember, he said, better here than next summer.

  “I hate to lose and I think it’s going to drive me even more,” I said when I met the press. “It definitely makes me hungrier for next year leading into Athens. I have a lot of goals for that meet and I think the 100 fly is a big part of that.”

  There was more to winning in the 100 fly, meanwhile, than just that race. The fastest American in the 100 fly also earns a spot in the finals of the medley relay. Second-best got the prelim, and I was suddenly in the prelim. Bob was adamant: I was going to swim in that prelim. It was my responsibility.

  I went home from Barcelona with five gold medals but, as well, the image in my mind of Crock and the three other guys on top of the podium after winning the medley in record time.

  Crock had prepared better for the 100 fly in Barcelona than I had. He had executed better than I had. If I was going to turn that around in Athens, I had to do better.

  The morning after the 100 final, a local paper ran the headline, “Phelps es Humano.” Translation: “Phelps is Human.”

  • • •

  The headline on the cover of the October 2003, issue of Swimming World, in bright yellow letters, shouted, “Super Flyer.” That would be Crock, guitar in hand, leaned up against that 1971 Buick. Inside was a lengthy feature that included a centerfold of Crock swimming the fly. I ripped out that centerfold and plastered it on the wall above my bed. Every morning, the first thing I’d see when I woke up was that photo. Every morning that photo was a kick in the backside. It drove me. It pushed me. It punished me.

  At the 2004 Trials, Crock not only beat me again, he lowered his world record, to 50.76. The Olympic final was shaping up to be a classic.

  By then, thanks to numerous stories about what I’d done with the poster, he knew full well that he was motivating me. But, it turned out, I was motivating him, too. He had in his head the image of me rushing by him on the final 50, and he didn’t like that one bit.

  We were, in the best spirit of what sports is supposed to be all about, pushing each other to be the best each of us could be.

  The 100 fly semis in Athens turned out to be a rerun of sorts of Barcelona. Serdinov won the first semi, in an Olympic record, 51.74. In the next semifinal, I went him one better, 51.61. Crock went 51.83.

  The medley relay heats took place before the 100 fly final. Thus, the coaches had to make a decision that ended with me swimming in the heats. Crock had beaten me at the Trials and in Barcelona; he had to be considered a slight favorite for the 100 fly finals. Plus, earlier in the week he hadn’t been at his best physically, and that had showed in the 400 free relay; better to rest him for the 100 final.

  Did I want to swim in the medley finals? “Big time,” I told the press. “Everybody wants to swim in the finals of a relay. I missed out on that last year, and I really want to do it here.”

  As I was warming up before the finals, Bob looked me over. He liked what he saw, liked the look in my eyes. Michael’s going to win, he thought.

  At the turn, however, it looked like I was doomed. Crock got off the blocks like a rocket. At the turn he was under world-record place; I was in fifth, 77-hundredths of a second behind him.

  As I hit the wall, I turned the power on. I surged into third, Serdinov and Crock still ahead.

  In the stands, Bob h
ad stopped looking at the pool at 50 meters, figuring I was too far back. At 20 meters, I had pulled up to Crock’s shoulder. At 15 meters, Bob looked down again at the water. Well, he thought, second isn’t that bad.

  The three of us churned toward the wall. Serdinov, though, bobbed too high and Crock got caught in midstroke while I timed my strokes perfectly. I reached for the wall at full extension, at the end of my stroke, just as I was supposed to do.

  My goggles came off so I could see the scoreboard.

  Serdinov, it said, had touched in 51.36.

  Crocker: 51.29.

  Me: 51.25.

  Seventeen races into my program in Athens, and I still had enough in me to reach for the wall and my dreams. Four-hundredths of a second—the touch could, indeed, make all the difference.

  Crock said on television, “Michael is just pure tough. That’s like just the only word for it. So, I mean, I knew he was going to be tough. And I just got out there and gave it my best shot. And I’m real proud of both of us.”

  Later, on a victory lap, in the stands I saw Spitz. He waved to me, his thumb down, the other four fingers up, a sign he knew full well what I had done. The 100 fly was my fourth individual gold in Athens, the same number of individual medals he had won in Munich.

  I also had the two bronze medals, of course, in the 200 free and the 400 relay. And I still had the medley relay to go, which, assuming the American team won, would make it eight overall.

  Crock, on the other hand, came to Athens anticipating three golds. If I swam the medley final, he would go home with none.

  Before I started swimming the 100 fly, Crock had been the undisputed best in that event. Now I was Olympic champion. But, because of me, he was now the world-record holder.

  Crock had a silver and a bronze at the Olympics. How could that seem like failure? And yet, somehow, it did. Why did he have to have gotten a sore throat at the Olympics, of all times? It wasn’t right. It just didn’t seem fair for a guy who, for as many times as I had looked at his photo, was someone for whom I had developed abundant and profound respect. He was rival and competitor, yes. But also my teammate and my friend.

  I thought about this some more, then told Bob that Crock could have my spot in the medley final. He deserved it, I said.

  Okay, he said. He understood. Go tell Eddie, Bob said.

  “Michael,” Eddie said, “are you sure this is what you want? It has to come from you.”

  “It is.”

  Someone else went to tell Crock, who was coming out of drug testing, to get back in the pool for another warm-down swim. But I’m done, Ian said. No, he was told, no, you’re not.

  Now it was his turn to say no. I didn’t earn it, he said. But you deserve it, we said.

  Eventually, he agreed. We let Eddie make the announcement to the press. I said, and I meant every word, “We came in as a team and we’re going to go out as a team.” Crock said, “I’m kind of speechless. I feel like it’s a huge gift that is difficult to accept but it makes me want to just go out and tear up the pool.”

  Which, of course, he and the other three guys—Peirsol, Hansen, Lezak—did. Crock turned in the fastest butterfly split ever in the medley and the American team took nearly a second off the world record. I got to wear baggy shorts and flip-flops and lead the cheers from the stands.

  After the medal ceremony, Crock came over to where I was sitting. We hugged each other.

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Later, Crock told everyone, “I thanked him because he was one of the main reasons I had the opportunity to do that. He gave me a gift.”

  It was an easy call, really. It was the right thing to do.

  • • •

  After those Games, of course, Crock and Krayzelburg and I crisscrossed the country on our tour. We were with each other twenty-four hours a day for several weeks. Crock opened up and we had a good time in each other’s company. A documentary film, Unfiltered, shot in the months between Athens and the 2005 Worlds in Montreal, chronicled it all.

  When the tour ended, Crock got back to serious training. Me? I endured the ferocious anxiety of my back problems, got arrested for drinking and driving, moved to Ann Arbor, and had to learn how to live life away from home. Other distractions abounded as well. I made the rounds of various talk shows. I judged a beauty pageant.

  At the 2005 Worlds in Montreal, Crock thrashed me in the 100 fly. Absolutely dominated. He not only beat me by more than a second, he lowered the world record—his—to 50.4.

  When I saw Bob afterward, I said, “I want to put a bag over my head.”

  He looked at me and said, “Me, too.”

  Immediately after those Worlds, I was off to China, on a promotional tour arranged by some of my sponsors. Finally, in September, Bob had had enough.

  “Michael,” he said, “what is it you want to do? What are we doing here?”

  “I want to swim all my events,” I said. “And I want to win.”

  “You know what needs to happen?”

  “I know.”

  I did, in fact, know. I just needed to hear myself say it.

  The 2007 worlds in Melbourne were not all that far away, in late March of that year, after a long Australian summer. I knew what needed to happen.

  In all of 2006, Crock and I went head to head only once, at the summer nationals. I won, touching in 51.51, Crock in 51.73. The nationals served as the qualifier for the Pan Pacs; I passed in Victoria on the 100 fly, Crock going on to an easy win, 51.47, in the finals.

  The 100 fly final at the 2007 Worlds took place on a Saturday night. By the time we stepped onto the blocks, I had already won five golds at the meet. This race could be six. The 400 IM, seven. The medley relay, eight. Crock got to the turn first, with me third. We tore for the final wall and, again, I caught him at the end, if just barely, touching in 50.77, Crock in 50.82.

  Five-hundredths of a second.

  In Athens, I’d won by four-hundredths.

  “Knowing that he’s having the meet of his life, I expected him to go very fast and he did,” Crock said afterward. “I’m just glad I still hold the world record.”

  “That’s how I won the Olympic medal,” I told the reporters. “You have to nail the finish as best you can.”

  The very next morning, Sunday, April 1, brought the medley relay prelims. Crock, as the silver medalist in the 100 fly, was up third on the blocks for the butterfly leg, swimming with Lochte, Scott Usher, and Neil Walker. Those guys put up what would have been the fastest time overall by more than two seconds. Except, on the board next to United States, it said DSQ. Disqualified. Crock had left the starting block too soon.

  The rules allow a relay swimmer the leeway to start three-hundredths of a second early. Crock, according to the timing device, had gone off four-hundredths before Neil touched, meaning his feet had left the blocks one-hundredth of a second too fast. When the judges ruled against him, Crock slapped his hands to his face in disbelief.

  A few hours later, he stood up at a team meeting in our hotel and apologized. I didn’t mean it, he said. I feel horrible. He kept talking about how bad he felt.

  I knew Crock didn’t purposely false-start. It was a mistake; people make mistakes. There was nothing I could do. It happened. I could win seven medals in Melbourne, not eight. Crock apologized. It was over.

  At least from my perspective, it was.

  But as 2007 rolled into 2008, Crock didn’t seem himself.

  At the U.S. nationals in Indianapolis in the summer of 2007, Crock false-started again, in the 100 fly; I ended up winning the event. A photographic strobe had mistakenly been fired after the “take your mark” command but before the beep; Crock flinched.

  In Omaha, in the prelims of the 100 free, Crock false-started yet again.

  It wasn’t only that I won the 100 fly at the Trials, Crock coming in second. It’s that I beat him by 73-hundredths of a second. He wasn’t, for whatever reason, himself. In the prelims
in Beijing, he inexplicably wore a jammer, a suit that runs from the waist to just above the knees; his time was so poor he almost didn’t make the semifinals. He switched back to a legsuit for the semifinals and swam much faster, tied for the third-best time with Lauterstein, the Australian.

  You could tell when Crock was on and when he was not, and I wanted him on. When he was on, he had speed, he had tempo. I like racing people at their best, and I knew that through the Trials and even into the prelims and semis of the Games he was not at his best.

  Then again, he might have that one special race still left in him.

  • • •

  And then there was Cavic, Milorad on the scoreboard, Mike to all of us who had known him for years, a guy who had been born in Southern California, went to high school there, then to college at Berkeley. Cavic had been training in South Florida with Mike Bottom, who used to be the coach at Cal and had proven himself time and again as one of the best anywhere at developing sprinters; Bottom was in Florida with a bunch of guys—Gary Hall, Jr., Nathan Adrian, and others—that was called “The Race Club.”

  At the Olympics, Cavic was swimming for Serbia in part because he could. Each country gets two entrants per event. To qualify at the U.S. Trials in the 100 fly, Cavic would have had to have gotten by me, Crocker, Stovall, Tarwater, and others.

  Not to say that he didn’t have talent. Cavic had ability. He finished sixth in the 100 fly in Melbourne, for instance. In Beijing, he had put up the sixth-fastest time in the prelims of the 100 free, proving he was on his game, then scratched out of the semifinal to concentrate on the 100 fly.

  Before 2008, though, Cavic had never shown that he was a breakthrough talent on the Olympic stage. His Olympic run in Athens had ended in the semifinals of the 100 fly when water had flooded the inside of his racing suit. After that, he dealt with back problems, even taking several months off in 2006.