Phelps' Dominance Never Ends
August 1st 2009 21:08
Typically, an Olympic athlete will take several months off from intense training after an Olympiad ends. The average Joe should not underestimate how much time and preparation goes into qualifying for the Olympic team, even over a 4 year span. Athletes need to be at an Olympic level of training roughly 12-18 months in advance of the Olympics in order to compete in world championships, national qualifiers, etc. This is standard issue for Olympians, unless, of course, you're Michael Phelps.
We all remember 2008 Phelps, scoring 8 gold medals in 8 events at the Beijing Olympics. Seven of those 8 gold medal races are world records, and the other one is merely an Olympic record. His accomplishments are unprecedented and hard to fathom. What's even harder to fathom is how he's back in the pool now, less than a year after the Olympics, arguably swimming even better than he did last August.
Phelps is currently mowing through the World Championships in Rome, having scored 4 golds and a silver thus far, with one event remaining. In 2 of his 1st place events, Phelps has broken world records that he set last summer (he still holds the world record in his one runner-up event and both of his other gold medals from Rome).
All this is to say that Phelps (and his high tech bodysuit) is already in world record shape.....more than 3 years before the next Olympic Games. Remember all that buzz about the bong photo late last year and the time he said he would take away from the pool, all the endorsements he had to do after his 8 golds? Well, apparently that hasn't stopped him from training like a madman to be ready for the worlds. There's no question that Phelps is the most talented swimmer in the world, maybe in history. The gap in success, however, may not be due so much to his superlative talent, but more to his training regimen. His results in Rome speak for themselves and also for how hard and how intensely Phelps hits it in the pool and weight room.
His drive and work ethic are unrivaled, even by archrival, Serbian Milorad Cavic. Cavic has pushed Phelps every step of the way, from their .01 photo finish in the 100 meter butterfly in Beijing, to their exchange of world records in the same event this weekend in Rome. Cavic had snatched the world record in the semifinals with a time of 51.01, only to see Phelps shatter it the following day with a staggering 49.82. Cavic raced the first sub-50 in the event's history with a 49.95. Problem is, Phelps beat him by a landslide-ish .13 seconds.
Phelps' swimming reduces all his competitors to puddles of admiration and compliment. Even Cavic, who has continually played the antagonist in the Phelps story gave it up after the 100 fly, telling Phelps, "You're the man."
Nothing more needs to be said about "the man."
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