Why Phelps was the star of the Games

A list of reasons why swimming's "Superfish" Michael Phelps was the star of the Beijing Games.

HE MADE YOU FEEL INVOLVED

There was nothing blink-and-you-missed-it about Michael Fred Phelps' journey into history in Beijing, no sense that, whoops, you've dropped your pen, and it's all over by the time you've picked it up.

It unfolded over 17 races, 66 race laps, nine days. Like the parchment that unwound its way around the Bird's Nest's interior wall on opening night, signalling his quest for unmatched greatness had begun, it had the power to mesmerise.

When's he racing again, we asked? What's next? How many's he got now? Wow!

As his dream rolled on, sweeter than a lifetime of slumber could conjure, we sat back and counted. Not sheep, but gold.

HE WAS BRAVE

"Pah, swimming," the cynics barked, "they give gold medals away in cereal packets." So why hasn't anyone loaded up on Cornies until now? Because offering the chance is one thing, taking it with the best in the world trying to stop you another matter altogether.

Phelps' Team USA comrade Aaron Piersol put it best, with the economy of effort that marks the stroke of the swimming greats. What he did took courage.

Phelps had already tried once, even if the realistic target in Athens was more like seven, due to Ian Thorpe's and Peter van den Hoogenband's hold on the 200 freestyle. But he stepped onto the blocks and said, "Let's have another go."

A man in pursuit of something that had never been captured opens himself to ridicule, long arms outstretched, waiting for the stones to be thrown.

HE WON WITH GRACE

Winning more often than anyone else meant Phelps gave more interviews than any other athlete in Beijing too, sat through more translations than anyone, heard
"How does it make you feel?" asked in more ways and tongues than imaginable.

Once, mid-campaign, a local journalist asked him a question that would have spanned an entire 1500m freestyle race, and when he couldn't hear the translation, others jumped in and tried to move things on. Phelps put up his hand to quieten them, returned his gaze to the Chinese reporter, and said, "No, I want to hear this man's question."

He knew it would be nothing he hadn't been asked before, but that wasn't the point.

HE'S A DORK

Phelps' fascination runs deeper than the water he carves through. One tribute writer last week described him as "a human jigsaw gone wrong ... boy's hips, stevedore's shoulders, arms like cables, stumpy legs, flipper feet". Crop the body from the picture and you are left with a grown-up version of the dorky kid who was chided at school for being different. Prominent ears, goofy smile, long face, army haircut. Ryan Lochte is the all-American boy who all the girls hoped would ask them to the dance. Phelps is human, at least out of the pool.

HE LOVES HIS MOMMA

"Momma Phelps" was a constant presence poolside, daughters Hillary and Whitney at her side. It could have been cloying, a bit much mush, all of that climbing through the stands, presenting bouquets, kisses and hugs.

Hillary, Whitney and Michael are products of what is termed "a broken home". Debbie Phelps is a patron for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, which Michael was diagnosed with as a child. Things can't always have been easy.

He says he will compete in next year's world championships because his mother has never seen Rome.

And when he says, "I am lucky to have the talent, the drive, the want, the excitement about sport. I am fortunate for every quality I have," it is hard not to feel Momma Phelps' her pride and joy.

AND HE'S STILL A BOY

When he was 15, Phelps famously tackled a training regimen of 5000 yards (not metres) without a break, swimming each hundred in under 55 seconds. At the end of it, his coach Bob Bowman would allow him "Be your own coach day", a boy in charge of his destiny.

"Bob knows that I like to be rewarded," Phelps said last week. In that sense, the child has never left him.

HE HAD A COMPETITION

The contention that there is far greater depth in men's track sprinting than swimming doesn't stack up when you analyse how hard Phelps, and not Bolt, was made to work for his booty.

Ryan Lochte in the 4x100m individual medley, the Australians in the 4x100 medley relay, the French in the 4x100 freestyle - all were greater challengers than anything the Jamaican encountered.

AND HE ALMOST DIDN'T MAKE IT

And then there was the 100m butterfly.

Ian Crocker was thought the danger, but at the 50m turn the threats were all around him; Phelps was seventh when they headed for home. In the mad splash for the wall, Australian Andrew Lauterstein pipped Crocker for bronze, yet Milorad Cavic looked to the naked eye to have the gold.

But the Serb had felt for the touch-pad too far out, and Phelps got him. The margin was one one-hundredth of a second. And without it, we wouldn't be having this argument at all.

- © Fairfax NZ News