No Limits (6 page)

More than three years later, Rogge got back to Ebersol. Yes, he said, swimming and gymnastics would be moved.

Over Thanksgiving weekend in 2004, Dick Ebersol was seriously injured in a plane crash in Telluride, Colorado; his son, Charlie, survived the crash; a younger son, Teddy, was killed. Several months later, on what turned out to be the very first day that Dick returned to work, my mom and I happened to be in New York. We asked if we could drop by his office; we wanted to see how Dick and his family were doing. With us was Drew Johnson, who, working with Peter Carlisle, is part of my team at Octagon, the agency that represents me.

It was a very, very emotional meeting.

Sitting in his office, Dick said at one point, I have something to
tell you. I want your reaction, please understand it's going to happen no matter what you say, but I want you to know: the swim finals are going to go off in the morning, the heats at night. Would that be a problem?

No way.

I was thrilled.

For real.

Swimming being on during prime time is everything I want for the sport, I told him. I'm trying to leave the sport bigger and better than it was when I was lucky enough to have first found it.

Dick asked me not to tell anyone about the news until it broke, which it eventually did, of course, after which I was asked repeatedly what I thought about swimming in morning finals.

It's the Olympics, I responded. If you can't get up to swim in the morning, don't go.

Which I believed 100 percent. Swimmers swim in the morning, anyway. To get to the Olympics and represent your country is an enormous privilege. How could anyone seriously think about not being able to perform? To say that you didn't want to give your best because it was ten in the morning instead of eight at night was an excuse.

The Olympics are no place for excuses.

The morning of the 400 IM final, Sunday, August 10, I met Bob at our dorm in the village—he was on the first floor, I was on the third—for a wake-up swim at a pool in the village. I was maybe ten minutes late meeting him. That sort of thing drives Bob crazy, especially on race day. He kept looking at his watch but not saying anything. Just looking at the watch.

We had never done a wake-up swim before. Some coaches swear by them. Not Bob. But we'd never had a morning final before, and Bob didn't want to spend the next thirty years wondering if he should have had me do a wake-up swim. So I did 500 to 800 meters, just enough to get moving.

Lochte had already done his wake-up swim. Katie Hoff, who is from Baltimore, too, and is an old friend, was doing hers. She would go on to win three medals in Beijing.

After that, we walked over to the dining hall for breakfast: oatmeal and fruit. And one of those cultural moments: no brown sugar for the oatmeal. I used white sugar. No excuses.

By now we were only three or four minutes behind Bob's schedule. He kept looking at the watch.

This was his way of saying, I want to get this first race over and done with.

Me, too.

For years, I've had the same routine to get ready for a race. I got to the Cube, per the routine, two hours before the race.

Like I always do, I stretched and loosened up a bit first. Then I got into the water, wearing just a brief; it's not the time for competition-style suits, much less full-body gear, and swam my warm-up: 800 mixer to start, alternating a 50 freestyle with a 50 of something else, anything but free; 600 meters of kicking with a kickboard; 400 meters of pulling a pull buoy; however I want to do it, something to warm up my arms; a 200 medley drill; then some 25s just to get the heart going a little bit. Since I was getting ready for a 400 medley, I also did one or two 25s of each stroke. When I was done with that, I swam down for 75 to 100 meters.

That was that.

Usually, while I'm doing this warm-up, Bob goes and gets himself a Diet Coke or a coffee—straight-up black, of course. Not this day. We were both feeling slightly paranoid. I asked him to stick around at one end of the pool with my water bottle. That way we could make extra certain no one was going to do anything outlandishly stupid like trying to poison me.

Warm-up went by uneventfully. I dried off, got warm, put my headphones on, and sat on the massage table. I always sit; I don't lie down. From that point on, no matter the event, Bob and I don't talk until after the end of the race. I mean, what's there to say?

In Beijing, the headphones were plugged into a black iPod, which I had gotten as a bonus for buying an Apple laptop at a store in Ann Arbor a few months before the Olympics. Here was the deal at the store: iPod or free printer. I never print anything so I grabbed the iPod. What's on my iPod? Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy, to name two, especially Young Jeezy's “Go Getta” and Lil Wayne's “I'm Me.” The lyrics to “I'm Me” are definitely not G-rated. But that's not, for me, the point. When I hear Lil Wayne do that song, I hear him saying, I'm my own individual, and that's me.

At the Cube, there was a television in front of the massage table. The choices invariably seemed to be archery, volleyball, or women's basketball.

About forty-five minutes out, I hopped into my suit, the Speedo LZR Racer. Some guys like to wear a brief under the LZR. Not my way. Under the LZR it's me. Some swimmers have said they need help putting on the LZR. Not me. I put a plastic garbage bag on my foot and rolled that leg of the suit over the bag, then up my leg; then I put the bag on the other foot and did it on that side. Easy.

For the individual medley I wore a suit that went from waist to the ankles—essentially swim pants. It can feel too constricting, especially trying to do the butterfly, to wear a full suit, one that wraps over the collarbones.

With thirty minutes to go, I got into the water again to do 600 to 800 meters. I was in the water for ten minutes, max. I got out, dried off, and grabbed my USA parka, put my warm-up pants on, put the headphones back on.

With about ten minutes to go, I grabbed my credential and walked to the ready room. The credential is your ID pass at the Olympics; it's a laminated plastic card that includes a picture and a barcode. For security reasons, you can't go anywhere without it.

When I'm in the ready room, I'm there by myself and to be by myself. Usually, the officials who are in the room try to sit all the
guys in the same row if you're in the same race or the same heat. I never do that. I just find a seat where I can sit by myself and block the two seats on either side; my caps and goggles go on one, towel on the other.

Lochte came over and said, good luck. I was, like, thanks, man, let's do it.

I knew, and Lochte knew that I knew, that, unfortunately, he wasn't quite himself. He had been dealing with a pretty significant case of the runs. It appeared McDonald's was his attempted solution. For a few days, he had been eating religiously at the one in the village cafeteria, chowing down each time on what seemed to be more than a dozen Chicken McNuggets, a burger or two, and fries. Lunch and dinner. If Lochte wasn't quite himself that day, well, he'd had an ankle problem at the Trials and went under the world record. He was going to bring it as hard as he could, no question.

They called our race. I put on the goggles and caps.

It was time to go.

As I walked out onto the deck, I looked for President Bush; I'd heard he was in the audience. I found him after a few moments, and it looked like he was pointing at me, waving his flag.

After we walked out to behind the blocks, I did what I always do there. I stretched my legs on the blocks, two different stretches, one a straight-leg stretch, the other with a bent knee, left leg first.

I took the right headphone out.

Once they called my name, I took the left headphone out, the parka off. It's my routine to stand on the left side of the block and get onto it from that side.

I made sure the block itself was dry. This is a lesson learned the hard way. At the 2004 Santa Clara meet, before the 400 IM, I didn't notice the block was wet. Instead of diving in, I more or less fell off the block. Embarrassing. Since then I've always made sure to wipe the block with a towel.

Once up there, like I always do, I swung my arms, flapped them, really, in front and then in back, slapping my back.

Some people have suggested that's a routine I do to psych people out. They think that I'm thinking: Even if you can't see me well behind your goggles, here's the sound that's announcing you're going to get your butt kicked. Nothing of the sort. That would be poor sportsmanship in the extreme. It's just a routine. My routine. It's the routine I've gone through my whole life. I'm not going to change it.

I get asked all the time what I think about when I'm up on the blocks, in the instant before the starter says, take your marks.

Nothing.

There's nothing I can change, nothing I can do to get faster. I've done all the training. All I can do is listen for the beep, dive in the water, and swim.

•   •   •

I had told Bob I intended this 400 IM to be the last one I would ever swim competitively.

It's not that I couldn't swim it again. More, I simply didn't want to. It's that demanding.

If I was going to go out, then I wanted to go out in style.

The idea in the first 50 was to use that easy speed and then turn it on just enough so that at 100 I would have a lead of half a body length, maybe even a full body.

At the first wall, Cseh was in first. I was just behind. Perfect.

The next 50, I gave it a little more juice. As the fly leg ended, I was in first, Cseh second, Lochte third.

I figured I'd be ahead after the next 100 as well, after the backstroke.

Lochte apparently had a different idea.

He went out hard over the first 50 of the back and turned there in first.

At 200, I was back in front but not as far ahead as I had planned when I was visualizing. Lochte was just behind me, Cseh third.

We turned for the breaststroke.

This was where Lochte apparently thought he could school me.

No way.

The breaststroke felt as good as my breaststroke has ever felt.

Coming off that 300 wall, I had no idea where either Lochte or Cseh was. I knew only that I had to give it everything I had in the free.

It wasn't until I turned at 350 that I knew what was what. I was in Lane 4. Cseh was in Lane 5, the one next over to my right; Lochte in 6, one more over. When I came off the 350 wall and took my first breath, turning my head to the right to breathe, which was in their direction, I couldn't see either of them, couldn't see the splash from their hands. I was way ahead, and suddenly I had the same feeling I had in Athens. You take your first freestyle stroke on that last leg, the race is almost over, and you're in the lead. Underwater, just as I'd done four years before, I smiled. I smiled as I churned for home, going strong.

After touching, I whipped around so fast, trying to see my time on the big scoreboard at the other end of the Cube, that I bumped my head into the wall.

The scoreboard said I had hammered home in 4:03.84.

Just as I had dreamed it.

My 300 split time: 3:07.05.

4:03.84. I had smashed my own world record by 1.41 seconds. Even I had to say to myself,
wow.

A little more deliberately now, I leaned up against the wall, then onto the lane line and raised my arms above my head, touchdown style.

Bob was nodding his head up and down in approval, a big smile on his face.

In the stands across the way, my mom gave Whitney a kiss,
then put her hands over her face in relief and almost disbelief. Hilary wiped away tears.

Back the other way again, President Bush and the First Lady, and their daughter Barbara, along with the president's father, President George H. W. Bush, were waving and cheering. President Bush gave me a point and a head nod. Cool. I said thanks with a big smile. Later, he told me, “God, what a thrill to cheer for you!”

Wow.

Looking at the scoreboard, I could see that Cseh had finished second, more than two seconds behind me, in 4:06.16. Lochte had gone out too hard in the first leg of the backstroke and paid for it at the end of the race. He was third, more than four seconds back, in 4:08.09.

“I saw Lochte going (slower) and I tried to do everything to go better than Phelps, but I don't have too much power for that,” Cseh said. “Anytime you think you can get close to Michael Phelps, he jumps to another level.”

I got out and met Bob. That was awesome, he said. Let's swim down.

Later, looking at the numbers closely, Bob said this might have been my best race.

Not like my best race of the year. He meant the best race I had ever done. Considering the circumstances, taking into account all the pressure and distractions and the buildup and the general noise around me and the Games; it was exceptional, he said.

On two of the four legs, I swam faster on the second length than the first. On the backstroke, for instance: 31.37 going out, 30.2 coming home. On freestyle: 28.94 going out, 27.85 coming back.

There's a term in swimming for going faster in the back length than the first. It's called “negative splitting,” and it's a strategy that certainly doesn't work for most everyone else. Common sense says it ought to be harder to go faster on the back half than the front.

It's just the way I've always done it.

Where I really won the race, what made me happiest, was that I had dominated in breaststroke. All the practice, the focus, the effort on the breast had paid off. Cseh was more than three-tenths of a second slower over that 100 meters; Lochte's breast leg was more than a second behind mine.

I had ripped through the first 50 in the breast in 34.77. That was a lifetime best. I came back in 35.79. Not a negative split but still, it got me to 300 right at 3:07.

Wow.

On and around the pool deck, my world-record time instantaneously generated an enormous buzz. I had become the only man in history to have broken the world record in winning both my Olympic 400 IM golds.