No 1: The Swimming Symphony of Phelps and Bowman
The Greatest. He did float on butterfly and he did sting like a bee, albeit in water, Michael Phelps's punches confined to a pull and a kick that sent him on a trajectory to the outer orbit of sporting achievement. There could be only one choice for the overriding memory and theme of the past decade in the race pool: Phelps, his coach Bob Bowman and their Swimming Symphony.
So many fabulous moments, so many riches, so much drama, control, poise, and professionalism at play. Each bar is fascinating in itself but the work is best recalled as a whole movement, with moments of majestic, soaring beauty that refuse to be ignored. It was a work of art - and a story of sporting brilliance second to none.
The composition is not done yet, the symphony unfinished, the movements still to be added to the work among the most anticipated moments in the world of sport. Put simply, Phelps is the greatest swimmer and the greatest Olympian of all-time.
The decade started out with a 15-year-old boy making it to a final at US Olympic trials. Amazing. Then he got the second berth in the 200 'fly after passing six folk on the way home to stand alongside Tom Malchow in US Olympic kit. Astonishing. At the Games he finished fifth. Fantastic.
By the time he won eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games, there were few, if any, superlatives left, for what Phelps and Bowman had achieved. That Usain Bolt was voted athlete of the year in 2008 simply reflected an ignorance of swimming among the wider world sports media and those called on to vote in such polls.
Bolt was grand indeed, but his trajectory fell well shy of the outer orbit occupied by Phelps - and his comments about how he might have won more had he been allowed to run sideways and backwards reflected a general lack of appreciation and understanding of what it takes to win five solo Olympic golds at one Games in a week in which you also help relay teammates take three other gold medals.
It reflected a lack of understanding about what it means to be ranked the best in the world over 200m free, 100m and 200m 'fly, 200 and 400m medley, and be among the best 5 in the world (in Beijing and at various points along the way) on 100m free, 100 and 200m backstroke.
Here was the most versatile swimmer the world had ever seen. Here was a man who could eat the positive and negative for breakfast and convert anything along the spectrum of those two extremes into energy of mind, body and soul in his pursuit of excellence and a plinth beyond all in the pantheon.
There were 37 world records, a few of those reflecting the use of polyurethane compression suits that boosted performance. But Phelps, a work horse with an aquatic brain and a fascination for numbers from an early age, was every inch a racer (still is). As US head coach Mark Schubert said in the wake of Melbourne 2007 world championships: ”There has been nobody that's been not just as dominant but as versatile. His performance was the greatest performance of all-time. He can do it from behind, he can do it from the front, he can do it when it’s close, he can do it when it’s not close. He can go anywhere."
Bowman summed up the nature of the sporting beast he had done so much to hone when he said: "One of the things I call Michael is the motivation machine. Anything that occurs Michael can use to make himself a better swimmer. He's motivated by success, he loves to swim fast and when he does that he goes back and trains better. He's motivated by failure, by money, by people saying things about him - that's one of his biggest motivations - just anything that comes along he turns into a reason to train harder, swim better."
In Phelps, Bowman had a talent, a worker, a racer, a swimming brain and a human driven to make the exceptional seem ordinary - and also a boy who grew up being taught lessons in sporting behaviour and psychology that he was not even aware of at the time.
As a boy, Bowman - who became a Beethoven fan with a degree in developmental psychology, minoring in musical composition - had been taken along by his dad to watch a swim meet at which Tracy Caulkins, arguably the most versatile woman swimmer the world has ever seen, and one whose career record was overshadowed by the GDR's State Plan 14:25 systematic doping programme. Watching Caulkins was like listening to music, Bowman would say. The notes rang in his head down the years, including a time when, he would later admit, he considered himself to be an overzealous young coach trying to show what the right work could end up achieving.
In the mid 1990s, Michael Phelps walked into Bowman's pool in Baltimore. Here's what happened on the way to immortality and what the coach did to help to turn the swimmer into an aquatic rocket man. The journey of the early years that helped to shape Michael Phelps was also a critical ingredient in the mix.
Their slogan was "The solution lies with us". It surely did. Six months after his Sydney 2000 debut, Phelps, 15 years and 273 days old, became the youngest male world record holder ever, his 1:54.92 in the 200m butterfly at Austin eclipsing Malchow’s best of 1:55.18. He followed up with the world title, in another record time, of 1:54.58, in Fukuoka 2001, but it was not until August 2002 that Phelps gave a hint of his extraordinary versatility: in 4:11.09 over 400m medley. At the Pan Pacs that summer, however, he lost the 200m 'fly to Malchow, and in the last major interview he conducted in the decade past, he told SwimNews that moments like that had had a greater impact on his motivation to be the best (see links at the foot of this feature).
A year later, at the 2003 World Championships in Barcelona, Phelps became the first man to break world records in two separate races on the same day: 1:54.58 to win the 200m butterfly and 1:57.52 in the semi-final of the 200m medley. He then set a world record of 51.76 in the first semi of the 100m butterfly before losing the record and taking silver behind teammate Ian Crocker (50.98); set a world record of 1:56.04 to win the 200m medley ahead of Ian Thorpe (AUS); and ended his campaign with the first sub-4:10 effort ever over 400m medley (4:09.09).
The stage was set for an attempt at matching Mark Spitz's golden seven. In Athens 2004, Phelps won five golds in finals and one for racing in the medley relay heats, before choosing to relinquish his place in the final to Crocker, and two bronze medals, one claimed behind Thorpe and Pieter van den Hoogenband (NED) in the 200m freestyle the other in the historic 4x100m free won by South Africa. His medal tally matched the single-Games record of Aleksandr Dityatin (URS), a gymnast, in 1980 but fell one shy of Spitz.
After two solo world titles in 2005, Phelps returned to outer orbit in 2006 with world records in the 200m butterfly (1:53.80) and 200m medley (1:55.84). But the best was yet to come: Melbourne 2007, seven gold medals, an 8th lost through a medley relay heats DQ, and world records in the 200m free, 200m 'fly, 200 and 400m medley. It was described as the greatest performance ever.
He went one gold better in Beijing a year later, earned a $1m bonus from sponsor Speedo and created the Michael Phelps Foundation, a charity to promote water safety and to advocate swimming for children. Here is a taste of Beijing and the sound of the symphony as it unfolded. Many had thought eight impossible. That view was like blood to a shark. Phelps pinned a quote from Ian Thorpe, to the effect that it was impossible for anyone to win eight gold medals, on his locker door so that he might see it every day until he departed for a date with destiny and the moment when he described a job well done.
In Beijing, a gracious Thorpe said: "I'm really proud of him not just because he won eight golds. Rather, it's how much he has grown up and matured into a great human being. Never in my life have I been so happy to have been proved wrong. I enjoyed every moment of it."
Bowman then spoke of the next chapter, a blueprint mark II, what would come next. And what came next was best summed up by the 100m 'fly at Rome 2009. By the close of the shiny suits era, Phelps, 22 gold and four silver medals at world championships behind him, was to be found leading the way out of the chaos and calling on his peers to embrace real swimming and rejoice at the death of apparel that left doubt where none had been necessary in a unique sport of athlete Vs athlete and their abilities to work with an element that demands respect: water.
So much achieved, but Phelps is not yet done. He has let it be known that motivation rests in goals that he has yet to achieve, goals that excite him. The 200 'fly and a generation-busting time is likely to be part of the mix. Among those targets out there (but not necessarily in Phelps's book of dreams) are the following:
- To become the first male swimmer to win the same event at three Games
- To rival Dawn Fraser (Aus) in the 100m freestyle and Krisztina Egerszegi (Hun) in the 200m backstroke by winning an event three times in a row. (Phelps has four solo chances and two relays in which he can achieve that)
- To double the gold-medal tally of the next best Olympian. In Beijing he reached 14, passing the record of 9 that had been held by Paavo Nurmi (Fin, athletics, 1920-28); Larysa Latynina (USSR, gymnastics, 1956-64); Mark Spitz (US, swimming, 1968-72); Carl Lewis (US, athletics, 1984-96)
- To exceed the record tally of Olympic medals won by one athlete (Phelps has 16, two shy of Latynina)
- To set a record for medals in solo events (he has ten, four fewer than Latynina)
- A record for racing as a member of victorious Olympic relay teams
- To convert himself into a sprinter and win the 100m freestyle
(As a marker, he emerged from Beijing as the 3rd fastest 100m free man ever, after the first season of shiny suits).
We leave you with the two features written from the last big interview Phelps and Bowman gave in the decade gone by:
Thus ends our trawl back through a fabulous decade of swimming. In March 2010, a year that started with a ban on the use of non-textile materials in race apparel and a cut back from the bodysuit profile, swimmers are about to test themselves under altered race conditions for the first time when it counts, starting with Commonwealth Games trials in Australia next week.
THE TOP 100 MEMORIES - the archive in full:
Part I: 91 - 100, the year 2000.
Part II: 81 - 90, the year 2001.
Part III: 71 - 80, the year 2002.
Part IV: 61 - 70, the year 2003.
Part V: 51 - 60, the year 2004.
Part VI: 41 - 50, the year 2005.
Part VII: 31 - 40, the year 2006.
Part VIII: 21 - 30, the year 2007.
Part IX: 11 - 19, the years 2008-09.
Part X: No 10 - the best 20 swimmers of the decade
Part X: No 9 - the top 10 nations
Part X: No 7 - players and contributors
Part X: No 6 - coaching influence
Part X: No 5 - Seven Waves that washed through - trends
