Olympic Day: Michael Phelps, Bob Bowman & The Most Golden Symphony In Games History

by Craig Lord

23 June 2020, 02:11am

To celebrate Olympic Day, we dip into the archive to celebrate the most golden Games partnership among pathfinders of the pool: Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman – 23 podium toppers and 28 podiums 2004-1016 after a 5th place finish for a 15-year-old at Sydney 2000

Rio 2016 – Swan song, Legend, Lore & Legacy

MP by PBK

MP by PBK

Michael Phelps – one last time – by PBK

Some things far outweigh ‘swimmer of the year’, ‘performance of the decade’ and the like. Michael Phelps is king of that Olympic Pantheon of the extraordinary, while his coach and mentor, Bob Bowman, is the composer of a swimming symphony that will not age with time. Indeed, there are many lines yet to be written.

Today, on Olympic Day a week shy of Phelps’ 35th birthday, we recall some of the highlights and focus on the last stand, at Rio 2016. What follows are extracts from contemporary reports and notes. 

Before we get to the performances in the pool, worth recalling that Bowman, and then Phelps, set aside the all-too-oft-heard mantra of “we can’t say anything – we have a job to do” when asked about the crisis of doping and accompanying famine of good governance at a Rio Games that witnessed unprecedented protests, including booing and jeering from the stands, every time an athlete towing a doping record walked out on deck.

Michael Phelps, Bob Bowman, from the back cover of the Golden Rules, [courtesy St Martin’s Press]

He noted that yes, indeed, the swimmers had a job to do and that was and had to be their singular focus, but he added:

“I would have to say from a personal standpoint that it is  very concerning to me that our governing bodies have dropped the ball on this and the system is broken and has to be fixed.”

Asked  what he would do if he were FINA President, Phelps said:

“Don’t ask me that one. Don’t get me going: I don’t want to be political about it … I agree with Bob that it’s something that has to be changed in all sports.

His voice creaking with irritation and emotion, Phelps suggested he had never raced in clean waters, adding:

“We all want clean sports. That’s all we want. We want everybody to be on the same playing field. I can honestly say in my career I don’t know if I’ve ever competed in a clean sport. It’s upsetting. But there’s not really a lot that I can control, but me. That’s the main priority for me. We’ve had this problem for how many Olympics and its sad that we can’t control it; that someone who is in charge cannot control this. I can’t say I’ve ever been in a clean competition.”

The voices of Bowman and Phelps lend serious weight to the pressing need to get to grips on doping and governance issues: it was Bowman’s ‘my boy won’t be coming back’ until you dump the shiny suits that signed the death warrant for the bodysuits in 2009, a deadline of January 1, 2010, set for a return to textile within 24 hours of the American coach making known his views.

Michael Phelps – by Craig Lord

Michael Phelps – By Craig Lord

That theme is far from done if Phelps is serious when he talks about wanting to change swimming; when he talks about wanting to make the sport big.

This 2016 Olympic year was a watershed for a Movement that has been too slow to change bad culture and its vanity of the blazers autonomy.

Bravo – at least 23 times over – to Bowman and Phelps for playing their significant part in telling it like it is. The picture they painted in a few short sentences in Rio paints more than a thousand words of grief-laden copy in honour of those deprived, nay robbed, of their rightful rewards in elite, world-class sport.

Those 23 golds, those 28 medals will shine all the more brightly come the day when they no longer have to share the limelight and headlines with phrases such as “doping soaked Games” and references to “the Blazers who did nothing about State Plan 14:25 do nothing again when given the chance to send Russia and everyone else the clearest of messages” – and so on and so forth.

And so we turn to the No 1 athletic performer and performance of 2016. With five gold and one silver, Phelps emerged from Rio 2016 as the most decorated swimmer of this year, all Olympic years back to 2004, and all Olympic years put together across all sport.

Michael Phelps: GOAT

Our archive piece on Phelps and Bowman below serves as tribute and recollection enough for this place at this time. Phelps reset the bar on swimming limits by taking hold of it, snapping it in two and plunging the shards down to the seabed. “No limits”. Well, there are, somewhere out there in swimming speed in a world of water, basic suit and unassisted swimmer – but you wouldn’t want to say what those limits are while people like Michael Phelps walk the waters.

(L-R) Michael Phelps, Chad Le Clos and Laszlo Cseh – shared silver at Rio2016 – by Patrick B. Kraemer

Three into one does go: Michael Phelps and Laszlo Cseh soak up history – by Patrick B. Kraemer

His career was thrilling, sensational, at once maddening and enhancing for rivals. If there were ever a golden moments for those taking silver, then look to the races of Phelps to find them. Just ask Laszlo Cseh, the Hungarian age peer of Phelps who claimed three human golds behind “The Alien” at Beijing 2008, as he put it with a wry smile of resignation. How fine it was, then, to see them share silver in Rio – three-way, no less than the other significant player in Phelps’ 200’fly career, Chad le Clos.

In Rio, Phelps founded the Quad club in a lounge beyond that opened in 1964 by Dawn Fraser, who was joined in the triple suite by Krisztina Egerszegi in 1996. Phelps muscled in as the first man in the club at London 2012. That was to have been his swansong. What, share a plinth in the pantheon? Not his style. The 200m medley in Rio delivered the first solo membership of the Quad club. Appropriate that all four strokes should play a part in that club-creating moment from the most versatile swimming in history. Breaststroke would have been the only stroke I would have put money on his missing the bullseye on at the peak of his years: had he made way for a backstroke focus, he would surely have rattled the backstroke bar, too, his ultimate choices a recognition and tribute to the excellence of Aaron Peirsol, among others.

Aqua, through and through – by PBK

Phelps left the fast lane with the following entries in the all-time top 20 lists:

• 7/20 – 200m free
• 4/10 & 8/20 – 100 ‘fly WR
• 6/10 & 10/20 – 200 ‘fly WR
• 6/10 & 8/20 – 200IM
• 3/10 & 4/20 – 400IM WR

Take shiny suits away and we also find this among his accolades in the departure lounge:

• All-time Top 10: 200m backstroke
• All-time Top 20: 100 backstroke
• All-time Top 30 100m freestyle

Michael Phelps – Photo Courtesy: Paul Younan

Five times round the rings – Michael Phelps, 23 gold, 28 medals in all.

And here are the World records, 39 world records (29 individual, 10 relay) in all, that surpassing the 33 world records (26 individual, 7 relay) of Mark Spitz, whose seven golds at Munich 1972 were surpassed by Phelps and his pieces of eight at Beijing 2008. Johnny “Tarzan” Weissmuller has 67 world records to his name in some references from an era in which standardisation of long-course pools and the division of yards and metres, as well as the rationalisation of “official’ events and ratification processes became part of the measuring stick of the sport. Apply the modern measure and Phelps is way out ahead on world-record count.

Michael Phelps – ok, I’ll say this one ore time… by Patrick B. Kraemer

There were 16 medley marks, 11 on butterfly and 2 on freestyle, the rest were relays, two of them – his last two, short-course marks, Phelps’ career a long-course affair. One marks were set in home waters, while the Olympics accounted for eight records, all but one in shiny suit and reflecting the apparely-assisted fast-forward on the clock at the time.

Bowman, when calling on FINA to set a date to sink the suits and return swimming too swimmers, declared that all marks set in shiny suits should be scrapped.

They never were, FINA finding it hard to scrap what it had allowed years beyond failing to scrap what it hadn’t allowed but kept as the official standard and record of the sport despite State Plan 14:25 and a weight of evidence that doping had fuelled 20 years of ‘progress’.

(x) – indicates the number of times Phelps had set the record at the given moment

There is so much more than can be and will be written of Phelps but not here, not at this moment. For now, here are some of my favourite medal moments, after which we visit the archive in celebration of  Phelps, The Score To Planet Phelps, Its Pantheon, Symphony & Stars – and its composer, Bob Bowman.

Craig Lord’s Favourite Solo Medal Moments From Michael Phelps Vault

Michael Phelps meets the family – and gets to hug Boomer Bob – by Patrick B. Kraemer

• Bow Bowman’s favourites

All of Phelps’ wins were tremendous, of course, Here’s my ranking of favourite medal moments – and a brief why:

1. 200m butterfly, Rio 2016 – Gold. As Phelps poked his head through a curtain stage left and folk started to wonder whether he might be a boy fit to grab Ian Thorpe‘s headline-grabbing power away, Don Talbot said: “Well, he hasn’t achieved anything yet. Longevity is the key to greatness.” Phelps slapped a poster of Thorpe on his wall and stared it down every day until the job was done. In Rio after reclaiming the 200 ‘fly crown – the very spike of his return – he said:  “Just to be able to see the No 1 next to my name again in the 200 ‘fly, one more time: couldn’t have been scripted any better. I told Bob when I came back how bad I wanted that 200 ‘fly. I came in on a mission and that mission was accomplished.” No disrespect at all to Chad Le Clos but there was a sense of a lost jewel in a crown finding its way home in the last 200m butterfly in the career of the greatest swimmer there ever was.
2. 400m medley, Athens 2004 – Gold. First gold; first WR at the Olympics – at 19. It was thrilling, a herald for the greatest haul – and how – in Olympic history. The biggest winning margin in history. Here was the evidence that we were looking at the versatile swimmer to end them all.
3. 200m freestyle, Beijing 2008 – Gold: we all know that the suits made a difference, to Phelps, too; and most of you know how I felt about those suits. And then there was a 1:43.86 on the clock – and then there was a 1:42.96 on the clock. It was a part of those pieces of eight. We will never know where the clock might have been. We do know he would have won. We do know that he would have done so convincingly. And we do know that he swam that race as masterly as they come four years after enduring bronze so that progress could be made.
4. 200m freestyle Athens 2004 – Bronze: the ‘race of the century’. Well, it won’t be by the time the century is up, four years into 100 years not the best of moments to dismiss 96 years of achievement to come. Still, what a race and with Ian Thorpe and Pieter Van Den Hoogenband ahead of him, Phelps had the best gift he could have had in terms of the next four years in pursuit of those pieces of eight.
5. 200m butterfly, London 2012 – Silver: same spirit as above. It is because Chad Le Clos got his hand to the wall a touch ahead in London that we were all able to witness the wonder of Rio 2016.
6. 100m butterfly, Beijing 2008 – Gold: 0.01. Nailing the finish. Knowing where he must be relative to Milorad Cavic if he was going to keep the dream of eight alive. So memorable that Phelps and Bowman named a thoroughbred racehorse they co-owned ‘By A Hundredth’ (not quite a nag but you can’t win ’em all 🙂
7. 400m medley, Beijing 2008 – Gold: again, the shiny suits get in the way. We will never know where he would have been on the clock. Chances are it would have been equally impressive. As things stood, it was 4:03.84. Mind-boggling. The top speed of Evans and Adlington when claimed 400m free Olympic gold, with breaststroke in the mix. Take a timewarp and place Phelps, 2008, at the height of his powers in a lane next to Brad Cooper, Steve Genter, Tom McBreen and Graham Windeatt, 1972 – and he’s right on their tale using all four strokes.
8. 200m medley, Beijing 2008 – Gold: the world record may have reflected the suit a touch, such was the season but look at the dominance: 2.29 up on Laszlo Cseh, 2.30 up on Ryan Lochte (who’d just won the 200 back). Phelps led from go to gold. Another masterclass.
9. 200m medley, Rio 2016 – Gold: founder member of the Quad Club. History in the making. And again, 2sec ahead. Dominant at 31 – the oldest solo Olympic champion in history (until Anthony Ervin changed the game).
10. 200m butterfly, Beijing 2008 – Gold: look not at the clock (though it was a WR that will stand for some while yet), look at the goggles filled with water; see a mind blind but able to see his way to each wall by counting his strokes and nailing his walls and keeping Cseh at bay once more.
11. 100m butterfly, Athens 2004 – Gold: 0.04 ahead of Ian Crocker. Stunning for that alone but sensationally so for how it unfolded – and then part of a lore when Phelps said ‘I’d like Ian to go in the medley relay final’. ]
12. 100m butterfly, London 2012 – Gold: he hadn’t put the work in/didn’t find the right spike to get what he wanted out of the 200m in London but the 100m he was not prepared to give up, under any circumstances. Knocked down but not out. Never out.
13. 200m medley, London 2012 – Gold: The 400IM – 4th. Shocker. Phelps shook off the dust, licked the wound and took stock. Not again. And not again in the face of Ryan Lochte as a medley man on a roll, the first shiny suit standard downed by his gun.
14. 200m butterfly, Athens, 2004 – Gold: It was the first of his 200m butterfly wins after he had taken the world record at 16 in 2001 and then the world title in 2003. An Olympic record, the Midas Touch with him.
15. 200m medley, Athens, 2004 – Gold: He’d demolished the world record in 1:55.94, so a 1:57.14 win seemed modest. It was anything but, of course. His fourth gold medals of the Games and career was his 1.674sec ahead of Ryan Lochte, a towering duel in its infancy.

August, 2016: Rio Olympic Games – The Swansong, by Craig Lord

How Bob Bowman Built The Score To Planet Phelps, Its Pantheon, Symphony & Stars

Planet Phelps – by Patrick B. Kraemer

The maestro behind the greatest medals movement in Olympic history is Machiavelli with a stopwatch.

Michael Phelps, 31 and 20 years into his partnership with Bob Bowman, was not far wide of the mark when he described as “insane” his 23 golds atop 28 medals in all at four Olympics 2004-2016 after it all began with a fifth place in the 200m butterfly final for a 15-year-old at Sydney 2000.

Planet Phelps ranks 5th among nations on the all-time swimming medals table at the Olympics since it all began in 1896. Stretch it to all sports and he makes the top 40 nations.

The grin of a mad scientist breaks out Bowman’s face as he revealed the terrible truth the day after Phelps had past Spitzean heights with an eighth gold medal at Beijing 2008: “At the Melbourne World Cup in 2003 I stepped on his goggles – deliberately. He said ‘hey, someone stepped on my goggles’. I said ‘Oh … well, you’re just gonna have to go without them’.”

In Phelps, Bowman found the raw materials that he had been looking for at the North Baltimore Swim Club. “At 11, he was so fast, he had to swim with older swimmers … but by the end of the practice, and at the most difficult part of the session, I saw a little cap moving up forward to the front of the line with each repeat swim. It was so remarkable, I’d never seen anything like it and when I went home that night I couldn’t sleep I was so excited, but of course I didn’t tell him that.”

Instead, Bowman piled on the metres and challenges. After one particularly bruising practice, Phelps leapt out of the water and started splashing water at some of the girls watching nearby. “I said ‘you should be very tired, that’s the hardest practice you’ve ever done’,” Bowman recalled.

“I’ll never forget, he looked me straight in the eye and said ‘I don’t get tired’, so I made that my life goal to see if I could accomplish that.”

Michael Phelps by Patrick B. Kraemer

Michael Phelps by PBK

Bowman set about teaching the Baltimore Bullet how to keep loading his gun even as enemy fire keeps raining in, as it does in the Olympic cauldron.

When a scrawny, gangly 12-year-old raced at his first national junior meet in the United States, Bowman noticed he had left his goggles behind just before he walked out to the blocks. “I saw them sitting in our team area, I could have taken the goggles to him but I decided to keep them and see what he could do,” Bowman said.

“So he swam and won the race without the goggles just like he would do in Beijing in the 200 butterfly when his goggles filled with water. He was ready years before.”

Bowman build barriers for the young Phelps to find his way over. “I’ve always tried to find ways to give him adversity in either meets or practice and have him overcome it,” said the coach. When Phelps was 14, Bowman sought out a competition where racing was held late evening. As Phelps raced, Bowman had a word in the driver’s ear: “Make sure we get to the hotel 10 minutes late.”

“Well, guess what,” says Bowman with a chuckle. “That way there was no dinner – he had to deal with it. He’s used to handling pressure situations in training, where that pressure comes from me.

“We have often put him in a situation where practice is not over until he achieves a certain time. Things have to be done absolutely correctly or we do them over.”

Bowman learned some of his tricks and tactics from former Britain performance director Bill Sweetenham. “I was at the AIS [Australian Institute of Sport] when Bill was there training a squad of juniors. After one session, they all complained that the water in the water fountain was too hot. So the next day, there was no water fountain.” Sweetenham has had a builder remove it overnight. “I wouldn’t want you drinking water that’s a little bit too warm,” he told the swimmers. From then, they had to bring their own bottles “and be responsible for that”.

Michael Phelps of the United States of America (USA)
Press Conference

Bowman took Phelps to junior meets where “he would race three times in the morning, three in the afternoon and then I’d say to him, ‘that’s not quite right, you could go again’. Every time he got out and said ‘I’m tired’, I said ‘no, no, look, let’s just try that again, go on now’, and every time he’d get back in and go again.”

In Rio at the last press conference of his career as a racer, Phelps was asked to explain his success. He said:

“My success is nothing out of the ordinary: goal-setting, believing in myself and not giving up until I get there. Sure, I went through ups and downs, in and out of the pool, but not giving up was instilled in me at a very young age. I was in pretty good physical shape for these Games but I had to get my mind right. I said to Bob, I will never let myself get to 230 pounds (104kg) again. I will stay in some kind of shape. The last two Olympics it hasn’t worked, hopefully this time it’s a triumph.”

Phelps takes with him “so many incredible memories” that selecting his favourite things is like trying to digest a meal before eating it.

The menu includes 23 golds. Which one to pick as the standout?

“This Games hands down it was the 200 ‘fly. That might be one of the greatest races of my life. How deep I had to dig, and how bad I wanted it back after 2012. I’ve been on the good side of some of those close ones. As a whole, I don’t know, every Olympics has been so different.”

It was: five golds, one silver behind Joe Schooling, the pupil who became the master and one of waves of younger swimmers revealing all week long the photos (Ryan Murphy from 2004), the posters on the bedroom wall (Olivia Smoliga, you’re not alone), the inspiration that fuelled and drove (Katie Ledecky, Adam Peaty and James Guy watching telly in between reading Harry Potter and project week at primary school). Phelps has been the golden snitch of swimming, the hare and draw in inspiration.

“I saw a picture with me and Ryan when I was on a ‘Swim with the Stars’ tour in Atlanta in 2004,” says Phelps. “All these photos are showing up, that when I was 19 or 20, and they were eight, nine, 10, so being able to share those memories and being on my last team with them – it’s exciting to see what the future will bring. We have a lot of talent. It’s not one or two or three countries, it’s everybody. I am very proud to see it that way, and hopefully it continues to grow.”

Timely Instinct

Michael Phelps talks the thrill of the wave with coach Bob Bowman at Melbourne 2007 world titles – by Patrick B. Kraemer

The boy Phelps had a built-in clock. Bowman asked him to write down the times he wanted to achieve in three favourite races. “He was just 11 but six months later he swam those exact times, to the one-hundredth of a second,” Bowman recalled. “He always had a very good sense of finding where he wants to go and how to go there.”

Goal-setting became a daily habit. Bowman explains: “On a daily basis I remind Michael of what his long and short-term goals are and how he stands today in relation to that. That’s where that whole thing comes in where many say ‘I’ll deal with it tomorrow’. I’m there to say no, let’s deal with it today. That’s my job. When we’ve had tempers flare, that’s where the issue is.

“He may not be ready to face that at that time and I make him do it or get him to a situation where it happens. There’s a lot of work that goes into it. There are a lot of ups and downs. He has bad days just like everybody else.”

Canadian medley ace Marianne Limpert trained in Baltimore for a stretch and told Bowman: “I’m so glad I’m training here…I just thought Michael was like a little swimming robot but now I see he’s a real person, he has his good moods and bad moods. Even when he’s in a bad mood he channels it into effort.”

“One of his best attributes”, says Bowman, whose role has been pivotal, critical even: up to Beijing there had been 12 years of emotional, mental and physical preparation of a kind that few could have withstood. London 2012 was not what he wanted it to be; it proved too much for him to get back up after the soaring of 2008 and the gladiatorial battles of 2009. But the button marked “driven – do not touch” is as much a part of the Phelps build as a stripe is to a tiger.

Michael Phelps – Motivation Machinec – by Patrick B. Kraemer

Bowman called Phelps “The Motivation Machine”, with “good mood, bad mood, happy or angry, channelled into effort to take him to new places. That’s one of his best attributes.”

Asked what he had wanted out of Rio 2016 and a fifth Games beyond the medals, Phelps said: “I wanted people to see the real me. I can’t wrap my head around it. I’ve lived so many incredible things. I’m at a loss of words.” What he wanted was “to make swimming the big sport it deserves to be. I want to change swimming”.

He will be an assistant coach to Bowman at Arizona State University, while his eponymous swim school and foundation. You might also expect to see Phelps lead swimmers into a more professional era worldwide in the coming years.

The Nuance of Numbers

At 23, the gold count, matched the most iconic shirt number of them all in American sport. Phelps beamed broadly and said: “I guess everything happens for a reason. Obviously, you guys know, Michael Jordan has been an inspiration for me throughout my career. Watching what he did in the sport of basketball is something I’ve dreamed about doing in the sport of swimming. We’ve done a lot, but there is a lot more work to be done. I was thinking about that today, after the relay. Number 23 will always be a special number. It always has been, and now it will be even more special.”

Phelps’ is moving on, no coming back this time: “I’m in the best place possible, this (Rio 2016) is the cherry I wanted to put on the cake. When I came back (out of retirement in 2013) I wanted to see how much more I could do. I don’t have anything else left.

“I have a new future – the list is endless of things I want to do. This is it. This is the last time you’ll ever see me racing in the water again. That’s why the emotions took over me last night, trying to wrap my head around 28 Olympic medals. I woke Boomer (3 months) up (when I got back to the Olympic Village), which Nicole [Johnson, the partner he will marry in December] wasn’t happy about, but I wanted to hug my son.”

Michael Phelps meets the family – and gets to hug Boomer Bob – by Patrick B. Kraemer

Where did fatherhood fit? “It’s the most important thing in the world. Being apart from him for these past four weeks, from when I saw him last, he’s changed so much. I changed a diaper last night. It was so nice to see him smiling back at me. I want to be there every step of the way, I don’t want to miss a thing.”

He no longer feels he will miss swimming, at least not the racing. He’s done with that and coach Bowman knew it, too. Raise family – and that is what Bob Bowman is to Phelps – on the approach of this full moon, and we find the GOAT at his most vulnerable and tenacious.

“Bob – he knew it was over when I walked over to him in the last warm-up,” said Phelps. Passion runs deep, his eyes well, he has to hold himself in check, pauses, swallows hard and sighs.

In his mind’s eye he sees all the warm-ups in one, a planet of workouts and challenges, goals set, goals achieved. He cannot “wrap my head around it”, the medal tally alone “insane”. He stares down at wringing hands that have pulled more fast water than it takes to swim round the globe.

“Without Bob, I would not be in this ball park. He’s been with me through good and bad and mostly it was really good. He helped get me to this point … he’s been a father figure to me and helped me through the work. He’s been there every step of the way.”

Their deeper understanding no longer requires words of reassurance. If in London 2012 they talked much about this being “the moment to go, the last time, the last session”, then “last night we really didn’t talk much … we didn;’t have to”.

Michael Phelps by Patrick B. Kraemer

Bowman “was probably more emotional than I was, said Phelps. “He was walking up and down every 50 [lap] I did. I’d look to the right then to the left and he’d be right there. A couple of times I smiled. I was just enjoying the process and the last race.”

Phelps repeated a line he used back in London, when he told Bowman that he had goggles so no one could see his tears but the coach had glasses and everyone could see just how much it all meant to both men.

Asked what the future held, Phelps said: “I want swimming to be a lifesaver. Too many people have lost their lives to drowning incidents and that’s a big passion of mine. I want more kids to be water safe, to do whatever I can to stop that from happening. If I can teach more kids to swim, then I’ve been successful.”

All In The Mind

Not quite but so much at the very pointy end of business comes down to that among those who are supremely fit, mostly very ready to be the very best they can be and yet, come the hour, knocked by stage fright and diminished by the moment, sometime painfully so, as the past week showed all too brutally.

Asked about the USA Vs Australia rivalry and what might have been as the USA romped home to superpower status once more, Phelps said: “Australia have always had fast swimmers. I guess I expected them to swim well. I have no idea what happened, but the talent’s there. I don’t know if I could give any advice. Maybe it was a mental thing.” He had a tip to give:

“I read a book this year – I read another book this year (he laughs and says ‘I don’t read many books, as some of you know’)  – The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind (by Joseph Murphy) – just to see what it was about. Always staying positive and believing in yourself goes a long way. Your mind is a very powerful thing and a lot of people don’t realise how truly powerful it is.”

Michael Phelps – by PBK

It will take that and more if anyone is ever going to get to those 28 medals and 23 golds. Not in our lifetime, many believe. But did the man himself believe it would happen in his time?

“I don’t know. I think the craziest thing is the longevity of my career. That’s why I’m here. I’d love to see somebody challenge it, we love to see records broken. How many years did people go thinking nobody could ever beat (Mark) Spitz [7 golds, Munich 1972; 8 golds, Phelps, 2008].”

Who recalls a dream that turned to goal and then to achievement and the reward and happiness that goes with it, be that a relationship, a piece of work, a garden built, a journey travelled? Says Phelps:

“I’ve lived a dream come true. Being able to cap it all off with these Games, it’s just a perfect way to finish.”

Bowman, a grandad figure to Boomer Bob Phelps, 3 months, was asked if he could find another Phelps out there. He guffawed and said: “Absolutely not. I’m not even looking.

“It’s not even in a generation, it’s once in every 10 generations that someone like Michael comes along. He just had so many things going for him – he had the physical skills, the mental outlook, the family that supported swimming, he was in a great swimming club. He had the emotional ability to get up for big races, and be able to perform better under pressure. I don’t think you’ll be seeing another Michael. There is only one Michael.”

The Eighth Symphony

Michael Phelps by PBK

Michael Phelps by PBK

And for your next trick? That was the question for the aquatic maestro and magician back on August 22, 2008. In the wake of conducting his 8th Swimming Symphony with Phelps in Beijing, a corner of Bob Bowman’s mind was already at work. It might be February 1, 2009 before the swimmer got back in the water, said the coach, Phelps having been promised a long break if all went t well. All had gone exceedingly well. Better, indeed, than any other Olympic campaign in history.

He needed rest. Even with a February 2009 return on the cards, Bowman believed that Phelps would be back in time for Rome 2009 world titles. “He can’t sit still for long,” Bowman told me in his last interview before he boarded a plane for home. “It’ll be like his welcome back meet, a little like Montreal (2005),” he added, dreaming of sunny days in the Eternal City.

We’d seen the sun the day before inside the Water Cube. And the moon and the stars and all the planets on a tour of the aquatic orbit of a truly unique human being, a man whose achievements come straight from the book of comic-strip super-heroes. Spirits soared at the sight of it all.

Michael Phelps referred to being “almost half way through my races” after taking the 200m freestyle crown in a world record of 1:42.96, the pace of a panel or two of polyurethane on the way to a full shiny crisis.

Patterns in the Pool: Michael Phelps on the way to one of his eight golds at the Water Cube – by Patrick B. Kraemer

It was after the 200m free that the 8th Symphony was starting to find its way into the soul. With each passing race, a few more notes were heard. Beethoven‘s Ninth, Mozart‘s Clarinet Concerto In A, K 622 – 2, Adagio, Rodrigo‘s haunting Concierto de Aranjuez. “How did you get that? Bowman asked me after I noted the Spanish composer’s haunting work in my report of the 200m freestyle final.

It was there for all with an ear for the water to hear, for all with an understanding of swimming and its element to feel, to see: the balance, the rhythm, the beat, the drop, the harmony in between. The sparkle of symbiosis between water and the swimmers whose bodies are 60% made of the same fluid. How could they not get on?

The uplifting beauty of it all; movements, orchestral and aquatic. In all the years I had (and have) watched swimming, I could not recall witnessing something quite so complete, quite so certain even when the call was closer than the eye can count and the clock is judge.

Time up, tolled the bell for Nurmi, Latynina, Spitz and Lewis half-way through the Symphony at the count of nine all-time career Olympic golds. The ensemble was just getting into its swing as nests came from the office of a newspaper I work for that an editor had said he’d got “bored” with the “inevitability of it all”, a few nods of agreement among responses. Like jokes, great events sometimes require you to have been there. After the 200m free, my colleague Nicole Jeffery, of The Australia, noted that even for a man who performs five miracles before lunchtime, Phelps had excelled himself.

Bowman had told him that he should and could get his feet on the wall at 50sec half-way. Yes, sir – will do. We’d seen it before, at Melbourne 2007 worlds in particular, but the sight of Phelps on a roll was something to behold.

When he rolled and streamlined and drove and dug, Phelps moved like a killer whale settled on sealing the fate of a seal marked supper. Latent power and controlled aggression combined with an accuracy of thought and calculation, timing and tenacity steely and cutting in nature. Watch the cupping of Phelps’s hand, the roll of the whole arm and shoulder over an invisible barrel as he harnesses his element, an invisible yoke to transport him through translucence. Warp-speed, second star on the right, straight on ’til morning kind of stuff.

Ian Thorpe, with Pieter Van den Hoogenband and Michael Phelps after the “race of the century” – by Patrick B. Kraemer

Phelps emerged from the 200m gold in Beijing to note that loss in the same event in that “race of the century” with Ian Thorpe and Pieter Van Den Hoogenband at the 2004 Games in Athens had put the fire in his belly for what unfolded this morning.

“I hate to lose,” said Phelps. “And getting third in the 200 free four years ago…You know, when I do lose in a race like that and in circumstances like that, it motivates me even more to try and swim faster.”

On drawing level at nine career golds with the all-time record holders, Americans Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis, Finland’s Paavo Nurmi and Soviet gymnast Larysa Latynina, Superfish said: “To be tied for the most Olympic golds of all time, with those names in Olympic history and the Olympics have been around for so many years, is a pretty amazing accomplishment. It’s pretty cool. It’s definitely an honour. I’ve been able to spend some time with Carl Lewis and exchange a few words with Spitz here and there, so it’s pretty amazing.”

Ahead of him at that stage: the 200 ‘fly final, the 4x200m free relay, the 200IM, the 100 ‘fly against Ian Crocker and the 4x100m medley that would draw him level with Spitz – or not – and keep the possibility of eight alive – or not. Turned out that not was not part of his vocabulary.

The coach needed to say very little come the big moment, the work having been done long before leaving home. Even so, there were moments when Bowman needed to be hands on in the full glare of the lights. In Beijing, that moment came on the day of the 200m medley – job done – and the 100m butterfly semi soon after. After the 200m medley, Phelps returned to his coach “totally drained”. Said Bowman: “I had to talk him through that. He was really tired at that point. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go.”

US swimmer Michael Phelps (second from L) touches home for gold, just ahead of Milorad Cavic from Serbia (third from L) with silver. That made it Gold No 7 for Phelps – level with Mark Spitz 1972 – by Patrick B. Kraemer

Phelps got through it and the next day took the 100m butterfly gold 0.01sec ahead of Milorad Cavic, of Serbia. Ill-feeling followed when Serbian team officials challenged the result, suggesting that Cavid had touched first but that his pad had not registered. Conspiracy theories suggested that Omega had stopped the clock themselves in favour of its poster boy. The truth was to be found elsewhere, while the controversy required Phelps to stay focussed, his job not yet one.

Bowman lated noted that Phelps “can focus like no other athlete”. “Phelps stares down Cavic” said one headline and accompanying photo-caption. Not so, said Bowman: “If you were watching the 100m butterfly final, the Serbian swimmer and Michael were facing each other standing behind the blocks and it looked like they were trying to stare each other down. After the race I asked Michael if that was what he was doing, and he said ‘I didn’t even know he was there’. That’s how focused Michael is on what he wants to do.” The 100m butterfly result flicked a switch for the coach:

“The biggest moment of relief for me was after the 100m butterfly [final]. I’d convinced myself that seven was the number. It wasn’t until the last 15m [butterfly] that I thought maybe it [eight] would happen. One thing Michael does better than anyone else is to use the right amount of emotional energy for every race he stands up for.”

And stand up he did, teammates with him to deliver the eight. The water whipped, the gold count towering, the symphony complete, Bowman said that Phelps would branch out into more sprints, more backstroke, some more breaststroke at national events, no 400Im, as agreed with Phelps, and while the 400m free and a shot at Thorpey’s standard was not on the cards, the signature 200 ‘fly would remain all the way back to the blocks at London 2012.

Michael Phelps by Patrick B. Kraemer

In Beijing, Bowman had witnessed the very thing he did not expect to see but had, nonetheless, prepared his pupil for many moons before risk turned to robotic response just when it was hosted needed on the biggest of occasions: Phelps’ goggles had filled with water at the start – and he had struggled to find best form. The result was still a world record of 1:52.03, the suit, perhaps, having made up for the loss of vision. Bowman had thought a time “in the 1:50s” had been possible that day.

The impact of suits had not yet become clear and Bowman was talking of a sub-50 100 ‘fly as being in the realms of possibilities for Phelps. It would happen, in a LZR Racer, too, in a Rome Circus that would sink the shiny suits for good, a January 1, 2010 deadline for death to buoyancy set after Bowman said his boy would not be coming to the FINA party unless the hosts got back to swimmer and swimming, not industry and impostor.

Even so, Bowman was among those who would later say that much had been learned from the experience of suits and the catch-up with the clock might be swifter because of the knowledge gained even with the artificial aid had been lost. The role of coach and swimmer fits well with the thought of George Bernard Shaw:

“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”

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