Salinas’ ‘Superman’ of swimming gains notice
Do you believe in Superman? You might if you saw how unassuming 10-year-old Clark Kent smashed legendary swimmer Michael Phelps’ long-standing record.
Nicknamed Superman, Clark Kent Apuada of Salinas not only won all seven of his events Sunday in the Far West International Swimming Championships in Moraga, but he clocked a shocking time of 1:09:38 in the 100-meter butterfly. That was more than a second quicker than Phelps’ mark set 23 years ago.
Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of alltime with 23 gold medals in swimming, took notice of what happened to his record.
Apuada is already on his way to dreaming big, according to his Monterey County Aquatic swim team coach.
“His first goals were, ‘I want to be a scientist, an Olympic gold medalist for the United States and I want to be a black belt,’ ” Travis Rianda told CBS News. “It wasn’t like, ‘I want to be better than Michael Phelps.’ ”
The record-setting performance and the ensuing publicity is still a bit of an adjustment for Clark Kent Apuada.
“Most people just call me Clark, but now, when I beat Michael Phelps’ record, they start calling me Superman,” he said. “I thought to myself yeah if I had positive thoughts, positive things would happen.”
Exactly the kind of modesty we would expect from Clark Kent.