Newly motivated Phelps determined to make big splash
For a beast of a man, an athlete who has made the Olympic Games his own personal splash pad, Michael Phelps carries with him some heavy regret.
Yes, the Baltimore native is the most decorated Olympian in history, a winner of 22 medals and (presumably) counting. And yes, the 31-year-old will join Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt as the brightest of the athletic star power next month in Rio de Janeiro.
But if this is indeed going to be Phelps’ celebrated Last Goodbye — as the artistic Under Armour commercial so vividly will serenade television viewers throughout the Rio Games — there is some unfinished business as well.
Outside of the pool, Phelps likes to think of himself as a new man now, determined to put some of the turmoil of his past behind him.
He is sober, fit and lean like never before. A humiliating drinking-and-driving charge from 2014 is also in the rear-view, while the focus is on his newborn son, Boomer, and fiance, Nicole.
Inside the pool, there is the regret of the London Olympics four years ago where Phelps admits with frustration that he essentially gave away medals in the 400-metre medley and 200-metre butterfly by not preparing properly.
For a guy who has struck Olympic gold 18 times, the mere idea of having more to prove seems ludicrous.
But Phelps admits a brilliant career has been accomplished despite not going all out, all the time.
“It’s kind of a crappy way to go out and retired and kind of know that you still had more in there and that you could do better,” Phelps told Postmedia earlier this year as he prepared for an incredible fifth Olympic Games.
“That’s something I didn’t want. I deserve the results that I got in London. I didn’t put the work and the time in to deserve any better. I take the full blame. I never want to look back 20 years down the road and say, ‘What if I had done this, what if I had done that?’ ”
So despite declaring his retirement after the London Games, something burned in Phelps to return. Those London results didn’t sit well with Phelps for a number of reasons. There was friction with his longtime coach, Bob Bowman. There was the issue of motivation and the arrogant belief (though not without some truth) that he could beat the best in the world with minimal preparation.
It wasn’t until the aftermath of that evening in September 2014 that the comeback got serious, however.
After a solid night of drinking and gambling at Baltimore’s Horseshoe Casino, cops caught the decorated Olympian’s Ranger Rover weaving and speeding through the Fort McHenry Tunnel heading out of downtown.
Arrested for DUI, Phelps spent time in a rehab facility in Arizona and upon pleading guilty to the charge, was given probation. In the aftermath, the new Phelps emerged. Without preaching, Phelps has contritely talked of the alarm clock effect of the arrest.
He re-evaluated his personal life and refocused his athletic pursuits.
Now, on the eve of the Rio Games, the Maryland native will have three individual events and the possibility of three relays to add to his medal-laden legacy.
“I’m going because I want to,” Phelps said of his motivation for a fifth Olympics.
“I want to go and swim again. I got hungry. I fell back in love with the sport again.”
Phelps drops the “100 per cent” line several times during his media appearance at the Baltimore headquarters of Under Armour, one of his main sponsors.
The genesis, he said, came from a friend who challenged him shortly after he decided to come back for one more Olympics.
“A buddy of mine from Michigan sat with me and dared me to give 100 per cent,” Phelps recalled.
“I’ll never forget him saying that to me because nobody has ever said that to me in my life. He was daring me.
“It’s really weird to say this, but I don’t know really the last time I gave 100 per cent, the max.”
Indeed, since firmly committing to qualifying for Brazil, Phelps has been putting in the work of a man possessed.
He is focused, more in tune with what he puts in his body, more attentive to Bowman and ultimately committed to peak one final time in his brilliant career.