Beneath the Surface by Phelps Michael; Cazeneuve Brian; Costas Bob

Author:Phelps, Michael; Cazeneuve, Brian; Costas, Bob
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sports Publishing
Published: 2016-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

17

FIVE DOGS?

I knew the World Championships in Barcelona were going to be a different meet than the Olympics or my first worlds when I had only the one race. This time, I was looking at up to six events: two IMs, two butterflys, and two relays. It was a great dry run for the crowded schedule I might be looking at in Athens and each day Bob had everything figured out to the minute: when I would warm up, warm down, take my laps, get my lactate tests, have a snack between races. His paranoia and my swimming would really be put to their first big test.

After all that hassle about who would come to Barcelona to watch me swim, the answer was almost nobody. Mom and Hilary arrived at Heathrow Airport in London for their connecting flight into Spain only to learn that employees from their carrier, British Airways, had gone on strike. The walkout also stranded families of other swimmers, including Ed Moses and Diana Munz. Anthony Ervin’s family was trapped at another airport. The police told everyone that if they decided to leave the airport, they would not be allowed back in. Mom and Hilary slept on the airport floor and didn’t shower for two days. They finally arrived at 1 a.m. into Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, where security was only letting people out who had European passports. So they had to stay at that airport until 6 a.m. When they finally made it into Barcelona on the morning of the first races, they headed straight for the arena, without a shower or a proper meal.

The 200 fly the next day was my first event. We wanted a repeat of the final in Fukuoka and for the first major competition since the 2001 worlds, I had the necessary amount of butterfly training under my belt to pull it off. The best way to swim the 200 fly, we figured, was to go out fast and hold on. I did exactly what we talked about and broke the world record in the semis, lowering it to 1:53.93. I didn’t quite keep to the gameplan in the final, when I trailed Ukraine’s Denis Sylant’yev at the first two walls, but I took over the lead with 80 meters to go and won the race by over a second. I came back faster than I had ever done (59.08 over the last 100 meters) in that event. It was a lesson learned to listen to your coach because he knows what he’s talking about. Tom finished third and it was great to get to get the title back that I had lost in Yokohama. “They used to handicap horses by adding weights to them,” Tom joked after the race. “Maybe we can weight Michael.”

We came back less than an hour later for the finals of the 4x200 free relay. I led off with an American record 1:46.60, and the four of us (Me, Nate Dusing, Aaron Peirsol and Klete Keller) broke the American record for the race in 7:10.

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