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Sharing Phelps' Dream Of A Perfect Score
BEIJING: The Water Cube is silent. The waters still. The scoreboard blank. The dream done. Michael has gone.
A champion has departed but he has left us fulfilled. Almost every morning, through nine days, I have arrived at this pool, collected the race schedule, climbed to the top stands of the Water Cube and watched a man chase his dream.
Always when he won, and always he won, I was on my feet. Michael does that to people, he moves them. He is an American, with a sad haircut, I do not know him, but it seemed impossible not to get involved with his dream.
To chase eight golds was not arrogance, it was simply desperately brave. If he failed, so be it, but he was willing to try. History anyway is never made by the faint-hearted.
What happens when we watch sport? We are thrilled, inspired, impressed, entertained. But with Phelps, unusual emotions came into play: We were grateful, we were humbled. Mainly because he let us be witness to something we have never seen before. Or possibly again.
Phelps fascinated us, he forced us to look at him, with those boy's hips, a stevedore's shoulders, arms like cables, stumpy legs, flipper feet, no hair, a physique so strange it's almost like a human jigsaw puzzle gone wrong.
We liked him because he seemed unaffected, never shirking a press conference, sitting there, face long, mouth open, tiredness collecting at the corners of his lips, never complaining, never boasting, never sounding bored.
Once a Chinese journalist asked him the world's longest question, Phelps couldn't hear the translation, chaos ensued, other journalists wanted to move on, but he waited, another translation was made, he answered.
Champions are not judged on decency, but it is just pleasing when they are unaffected by their own heroics. Throughout the nine days, Phelps explained his goal as raising swimming's profile, of altering its status as a four-yearly sport.
Yesterday, he revealed, friends had told him 'it's crazy' in the US, that on television the swimming is always on. Actually it is he who is always on, he who America watches, but he didn't say it. It was a nice touch.
We liked him, this revolutionary, because there is something pure to him, even noble, an athlete blanking out everything for nine days, just simply and singularly fixated on his dream.
How did he get up so early, find energy, push himself, not go out (movies and sleep is all he did), see his mother for only 30 seconds, manage his emotions, and then summon his best every time?
Maybe, we will never know. I don't want to know. Because something so extraordinary, so beautiful, should just be enjoyed not completely understood.
If genius could be explained, it would take some of the mystery out of it. It would make it seem common. It seems fitting that forever we will look back at Michael Phelps and ask: How?
These Games are not over, but these Games belong to Phelps. Even if a swimmer, under two caps, behind goggles, obscured in the water, seems an unlikely athletic god.
Some believe he should say farewell. Eight gold is his measuring tape and eight gold is unbeatable. Of course, that's what we said about seven.
But Phelps will swim on, and should swim on. He has to compete in next year's World Championships because his mum has never seen Rome, he grinned, and she wants to. And he's an obedient boy.
He has to keep swimming because he wants more people to go swimming, watch swimming and he's not close to his goal yet.
He has to keep swimming because he still hasn't discovered how far his talent extends, he wants to try new events, perhaps the sprints. And anyone who has seen him this week, do they want to say stop to this man?
Towards the end of his final press conference yesterday, a journalist mentioned that we had heard everyone's view on him, but what did Michael Phelps think of Michael Phelps.
He grinned. He paused. He said: 'I'm lucky to have everything I have. I am lucky to have the talent, the drive, the want, the excitement about sport. I am fortunate for every quality I have.'
He got up. People clapped. He slid his lanky body through the throng, adjusted his cap and strolled away. Just a man searching for a new dream. - The Straits Times
