A Fish Out of Water ; Sixteen Olympic Medals in Two Games Gave Michael Phelps the Right to Some Time Out of the Pool and He Made Sure He Enjoyed It Sport Usa [Eire Region]

Summary

---

MICHAEL PHELPS admitted this week that he was 'in a world of pain right now'. He had just dipped his toes into the water (Tuesday) for his first training session since climbing out of the pool in Beijing's Water Cube after winning his eighth gold medal of the 2008 Olympics.

His Herculean effort last August set the 23- year-old apart from the rest of us. He made history after all, beating fellow American Mark Spitz's 1972 record haul by one as the most gold medals ever won by an athlete in a single Olympic Games. Not only that, Phelps did so by breaking seven World Records, eight American Records and eight Olympic Records on his way to becoming the most decorated male Olympian of all time. His tally to date is 16 Olympic medals (14 of them gold), the others having been won in Athens in 2004.

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

A Fish Out of Water ; Sixteen Olympic Medals in Two Games Gave Michael Phelps the Right to Some Time Out of the Pool and He Made Sure He Enjoyed It Sport Usa [Eire Region]

The success earned in the Chinese capital brought the kid from Baltimore not just a bevy of awards, including this week's SportsMan of the Year gong for 2008 from the United States Olympic Committee. It also earned him some down time, even from so hard a taskmaster as his long-time coach Bob Bowman. So Phelps stayed out of the water for months, taking the lon...

See the full content of this document

---