WGBA -Phelps dominates decade on way to Olympic glory

Phelps dominates decade on way to Olympic glory

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By PAUL NEWBERRY
AP National Writer

For Michael Phelps, the road to a dominating decade began with a rather forgettable race.

Well, actually, it started the day after the race.

Coming off a fifth-place showing in his only event at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, a 15-year-old Phelps headed back to the pool for a strenuous workout.

No time for sightseeing Down Under. Phelps, as we would all come to see, never took very long to start eyeing the next challenge.

"He was not satisfied being the youngest (male swimmer) at those Olympics," recalled his coach, Bob Bowman. "He wanted to win medals."

Ohhh, did he ever win some medals.

Phelps captured six golds and two bronzes at the Athens Games of 2004, which just spurred him on even more. When he got to Beijing four years later, he claimed nothing but gold, eight of them in all to take down Mark Spitz's iconic Olympic record.

"I think we'll look back on this 40 or 50 or maybe even 100 years from now and really understand how magnificent it was," said Olympic champion Rowdy Gaines, who now splits his time raising funds for USA Swimming and analyzing the sport for NBC.

Pulling off one of the greatest feats in the history of sports - maybe the greatest - is what makes Phelps a candidate for The Associated Press' Athlete of the Decade. But his impact goes beyond merely his own unprecedented brilliance.

Because of Phelps, more kids are putting on a swimsuit and heading to the pool to see just how fast they can go from one end to the other.

Because of Phelps, more people are flipping the channel to watch a sport that had always been ignored in this country except for a brief period every four years.

Because of Phelps, swimming is actually hip.

"I've got two teenage daughters and they think Michael Phelps is one cool guy," said Chuck Wielgus, executive director of USA Swimming. "They've got his poster up in their rooms."

They're not the only ones.

Recently, Bowman was reading a newspaper article that speculated on how much LeBron James might help his marketing value by moving from Cleveland to New York. It pointed out that he already had the fourth-highest "Q'' rating among all athletes, a measure of his familiarity and popularity with the general public.

So, who was ahead of King James? Tiger Woods (this was pre-crash), Peyton Manning ... and Phelps.

"For a swimmer to even be mentioned with thosepeople is amazing," Bowman said.

Any debate over who's the best always comes down to the numbers. So let's throw out a few:

-He's the winningest Olympian in history with 14 gold medals, five more than anyone else.

-He's set 37 world records in swimming, cruising on past another of Spitz's marks (33).

-He's won an astonishing 22 golds at the long-course world championships, the biggest event outside of the Olympics.

Beyond the pool, Phelps has seized on his celebrity like no other swimmer - making the cover of countless magazines, judging beauty contests, hosting "Saturday Night Live" - and, make no mistake, the rest of the sport has come along for the ride.

Normally, the year after an Olympics, USA Swimming has a membership jump of around 6 percent. In the wake of Beijing, it surged by nearly 12 percent to about 315,000. Looking a little deeper, the Phelps Factor has been especially prevalent among male swimmers, whose numbers have jumped from 37 percent to 43 percent.

What has that meant in terms of dollars? USA Swimming's annual budget has doubled over the past decade, now standing at more than $27 million. NBC jumped on the Phelps bandwagon, persuading the IOC to switch to morning finals in Beijing so his races could be shown live during prime time in the States. The network also is televising more non-Olympic swimming events than ever before, including this past summer's world championships.

"Certainly he's had some great teammates who helped draw attention and coverage coming out of Beijing," Wielgus said, "but Michael is at the head of the parade."

At the start of the decade, when Phelps became the youngest male swimmer in 68 years to make the U.S. Olympic team, Gaines figured he wouldn't last.

"That should have been a sign that this guy was going to burn out early," Gaines said."I even said at the time, 'This kid is amazing, but he's going to wind up in that long string of great swimmers who ended up getting burned out.' He proved everybody wrong, including myself."

The longevity is what stands out to Gaines, how Phelps keeps swimming faster and faster when really the only one he's competing against is himself. And unlike athletes such as Woods or Roger Federer, who've had lengthy runs at the top of golf and tennis, Phelps didn't have that always-in-sight next tournament to keep him motivated.

The Olympics are every four years. Even the world championships are only every other year. Phelps' success was largely built on long, lonely hours at the pool, pushing himself when no one else was around, pushing himself when there was no chance for immediate gratification.

"What's simply amazing is that he is so goal-oriented," Gaines said. "That's so hard to be day in and day out in our sport. You don't have a World Series every year. You don't have a Super Bowl every year."

Phelps has stumbled a couple of times outside the pool. He was arrested for DUI shortly after the Athens Olympics, and was suspended for three months this year after being photographed inhaling from a marijuana pipe after Beijing. But, in an era when so many athletes have run into trouble - Woods is just the latest and perhaps greatest example - Phelps' flubs are surely not serious enough to cancel out what he's done in the water.

"He just keeps doing it year in and year out," Gaines marveled. "He has nothing left to prove."

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