Okay, Phelps really has just turned the swimming world all topsy-turvey. Costas is interviewing him alongside Mark Spitz, and… Spitz is actually being… classy. This is so weird.
Both Spitz and Phelps struck me as amazingly gracious. That whole interview left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling.
I thought the brief interview with him after he won his 7th(!!) gold was really classy. He basically said that he was simply lucky enough to touch first (gods, what a RACE!). While he seems incredibly focused (inhumanly focused), he is remarkably well adjusted, considering. In fact, I don’t know how he IS so well adjusted and so seemingly free of the arrogance one would almost HAVE to be in his position.
-XT
I wish I’d seen the interview. Maybe it’s no NBC.com.
Yeah, someone posted the interview link over at TWoP.
Be prepared for awk-ward. Phelps seemed unprepared for the tongue-bath that he got from Costas and Spitz.
I’ve tried to watch the video three times now. God, NBC’s you-must-use-it software sucks.
And they wonder why we Bittorrent.
I wouldn’t say awkward. He just seems like a slightly goofy 23 year old guy who just happened to acomplish the greatest feat in Olympic history. Actually, he reminds me a lot of this intern who worked at my last job except that Phelps is a world class athlete and this kid was kind of a dumbass.
What life do most people have at that age? The go to school (Phelps attended University of Michigan). Maybe play some sports or engage in hobbies (ie swimming). Hang out with some friends abusing drungs and alchohol (Phelps got a DUI in 2004). Maybe get laid once in awhile (I’m sure that won’t be a problem for Phelps now, even if it was in the past).
A lot of young people travel around or try and “find themselves” or “experience life”. IMHO, most of the time they are just bored, directionless and don’t know what they want to do with themselves. And how many people do you know who even get to spend several weeks in China, let alone as an Olympic athlete?
It’s not that Phelps has no life outside of swimming. It’s that swimming IS Phelps’ life. It just seems that he has no life because most of us don’t have anything that we are that devoted to being good at.
According to Wikipedia, he has already made $5 million in endorsements. To put that in perspective if you graduate from college at 22 making $45,000 a year with an average of 5% increases until you retire at 65, you will have earned about $6.5 million over your entire lifetime.
I don’t know if it’s a distinctly American phenomenon. It’s called “sour grapes”. I think it helps people feel better about their own mediocrity to think that those who achieved great success either did so immorally, sacrificed some fundamental aspect of a normal life or experience certain negatives that outweigh the positives.
Phelps also won the relay last night. It was his push off the wall when doing the butterfly that did it. The freestyler extended it a little bit, but essentially kept the lead and did his job.
Races are won and lost on turns and dives unless someone is just THAT much better doing the stroke.
Did his job? What was his job? To get Phelps another gold? For fuck’s sake, that’s not why they’re there, despite what the media tells you! He earned his own gold.
I thought ‘did his job’ is the right thing to say.
He was in the lead going into the anchor leg. So, like Phelps, he had the luxury of that extra split second on the exchange to avoid the DQ, then just didn’t give up the lead. That’s what you need to do as the anchor leg there.
I don’t recall Lezak’s time, but it wasn’t as good as his time in the 4x100 free relay. He just did his job.
No, his job was to keep the lead he was given and extend it a little bit. The fact that Phelps got the final gold (and world record) is a byproduct.
That was the first Olympic event I’ve seen this year. I just happened to come across it and Phelps won the event for the team.
He’s stated that 2012 will be his last Olympics, that he doesn’t want to compete past the age of 30. I would submit this young man knows exactly what he’s going to do with his life…and taking care of his momma and his dog are high on his list.
Well, I have known Michael Phelps since he started swimming. He was always, and remains, a very nice polite individual with a lot of class. The kids who tormented him not do so because of his ears, but because of the fact he was so much better then they were. They would throw kickboards at him, purposely swim slowly when they were in front of him in practice and not let him pass, swim over him, and in general be pretty obnoxious. They finally found a 15 year old girl who all the boys were afraid of and had him swim with her.
An idea of what kind of person he really is can be better found in this article: www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bal-ed.notebook05jul05,0,2979353.story
And that article doesn’t tell half of what he did for Stevie.
Also, I have seem him loose numerous times (obviously not recently) and he was always a good loser, congratulating the winner and not storming off the deck like certain Serbians claiming he really won the race, and would surely win if the raced again now.
Ah, I’d been wondering if he was going to have a shot at passing Larissa Latynina for the overall medal record. Looks like the answer is “yes.”
ETA: I wonder if there were any interesting Vegas prop bets for the Olympics? Like over/under on the number of countries that will earn fewer gold medals than Phelps? 
PPS: It’s just too bad that his middle name is Fred. At least his father (from whom his middle name is derived) isn’t THAT one.
Did Cavic actually do that? In the interview I saw, he said he wanted to drop the protest.
Do you have a cite, by chance?
This is a misleading comparison. Even assuming the $5m is before tax and he only had $3m left, you can invest that and follow standard advice and withdraw 4% in year one and increase by inflation each year and you are very unlikely to run out of money. That gives him the equivalent of $120k/yr in today’s money.
This is not the exact article that I read, but is close enough; it fails to mention the “I would beat him if I raced him again” part.
mobile.baltimoresun.com/detail.jsp?key=205240&rc=sp&full=1
I have to admit that everyone in the entire world looking at the race thought that Phelps came in second, including me, his mom, and his coach. Last night they showed some freeze frames of the finishe that shows that Phelps did indeed win.
It’s in the linked article:
Everyone thought that Phelps lost that race because it is – usually – a bad idea to attempt a half-stroke touch at the wall. Even Phelps and Bowman mentioned this in the Costas interview tonight. He was just fortunate enough that his opponent also came into the wall off beat. In the interview, Phelps was very aware of what was going on in that half-stroke.
Actually, that Costas interview was pretty good. As was the one following, with Phelps and his mom. Interestingly, Costas brought up the same story that started out this thread in the OP – and Phelps basically confirmed that he wasn’t going to give the satisfaction to one of his former tormenters by acknowledging any relationship. In fact, Phelps seemed pretty level-headed – unimpressed by all the people coming out of the woodwork to claim a connection to him.
I’m sure both will be up on NBC’s website; worth a look (if you can get their viewer to work…).
Also, apparently “lord bullington” posting here is Mike Bottom, who coaches “Mike” Cavic (but was not the Serbian coach who filed the protest).