Phelps on course to blow Spitz out of water

14 April 2012

Mark Spitz joined the kid on the victory podium at the US Olympic swimming trials at the weekend, lifted his arm aloft and whispered something in his ear. The message from the great man was along the lines of: "You know, you really have a chance to do this."

Michael Phelps apparently agrees. Last night, suitably inspired by that symbolic meeting with the legend whose feat of seven gold medals in a single Games still has an unsurpassable feel, America's 19-year-old phenomenon outlined a plan to win eight in what seems odds-on to become the Olympics' most compelling quest in Athens.

After one of the most extraordinary week's labours in the sport's history, completing 17 races and qualifying for a record six individual events from the trials, Phelps has announced that he plans to compete in five of those events in Athens while also hoping to play a part in three relays. In that way, he believes he "can become the first Michael Phelps instead of the second Mark Spitz".

This might have sounded like a bit of California dreaming in Long Beach for there remain lots of ifs and buts about his quest. Yet Phelps's handlers are now adamant that by dropping the 200metres backstroke from his unprecedentedly demanding programme in Athens, they are handing him the best chance to at least equal and possibly eclipse Spitz's magnificent seven from the 1972 Munich Games.

You can see this becoming a huge deal in the US in the build-up to the Games. Swimming and Olympic officials, one suspects, will be desperate to help accommodate Phelps's bid to match Spitz because of the publicity and marketing boon it will offer. Nothing sells like the prospect of superhuman feats.

To land eight golds really would be extra-terrestrial.

It would require Phelps tackling at the very least another 17 races in eight days - or at the maximum, 20. He would have to beat a compatriot who managed to defeat him in the trials - only by breaking a world record though - and he would also be up against a fairly useful paddler called Ian Thorpe in the 200m freestyle, which is clearly going to be sold as the happening of the whole Olympics, not to mention the powerful Aussie 4 x 200m relay boys.

Yet eight medals of any colour? Well, it is feasible. In Olympic annals, only one athlete, Soviet gymnast Aleksandr Dityatin at Moscow 1980, has ever won that many gongs in a single Games. Phelps, despite naturally looking shattered by the end of the trials, still proved he had the stamina to improve upon Dityatin's tally of three gold, four silver and one bronze.

"It came down to the question: what is the best programme we can do? And this is the programme I feel most confident about," said Phelps last night, unveiling his plans at a promotional launch alongside supermodel Cindy Crawford, which gives an inkling of the sort of Olympian hype that is now bound to pursue the lad.

Whether he gets the chance to go for eight medals will ultimately be down to his coach Bob Bowman, who last night noted how the impact of swimming three events in an hour had eventually taken its toll on Phelps in Long Beach, and team coach Eddie Reese.

Phelps has pulled out of the backstroke because he feels it affects his chances in the butterfly but he will still compete in the 100m and 200m butterfly, the 200m and 400m individual medleys and the 200m freestyle.

A world record holder in the medleys and the 200m fly, he's almost certain of three golds at the very least. Up against world record-breaking compatriot Ian Crocker in the 100m fly and Thorpe in the 200m free is a different proposition, though, but Phelps just enthuses: "One thing I always wanted to do is race Thorpe in a freestyle event. It will be an honour to race him in his best event and this is probably the best opportunity for me to swim in probably the fastest 200 free in history."

Then there's the relays. Phelps would get a medal even if he only competes in the heats in these three events and it appears coach Reese will try his damnedest to grant him a shot at history.

For even though he did not swim the 100m free at the trials, which usually determines who is on the relay, Reese says he will even be considered for the 4 x 100m free because he owns one of the fastest times in the world this year at the distance.

America, it appears, is determined not to celebrate the second Spitz but the one and only Phelps.

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Phelps on course to blow Spitz out of water

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