Simon Barnes is blogging
from Beijing every day. Follow his Games here
Graphic:
Fast lane to glory - the race for eight
In a week and a bit, you may be the greatest human being that ever lived.
That's a hell of a thought to wake up to. It's a hell of a thought even if
you're doing something as silly as sport. By Sunday week, Michael Phelps
could be the finest person who got his feet wet. He may even have a
moustache as important as Mark Spitz's.
Spitz said memorably: “My must-ash [the authentic American spelling seems to
be required here] helps me swim. It filters the water away from my mouth.”
Bravely, he carried that moustache to seven gold medals at the 1972 Olympic
Games in Munich. Now Phelps might bear his own to eight. But even if he
shaves it off for competition to save the odd thousandth in hydrodynamic
efficiency, he is still attempting something quite extraordinary.
The American lounged into the big press conference room here yesterday looking
like a bad guy in a Western, the sort that tells Clint they don't like
strangers around here and pays the inevitable price. But if you thought some
of Clint's achievements with a Colt were hard to believe, the idea of
winning eight gold medals stretches credulity still more.
True, swimming is the sport in which mastery of a single narrow - if highly
complex - skill can win the exceptional performer a medal tally unthinkable
for a track-and-field athlete or a rower. But all the same, think of it.
Eight events. Eight finals. Eight moments when you might false-start your
way out of it or, in one of the three relays he will be swimming, one of his
colleagues might mess it up.
And think of the mental strife. Most athletes here are aiming to peak once; to
peak eight times is to turn yourself into a human mountain range. It's a
hard thing to do, almost as hard to deal with the anticipation. But the
23-year-old Phelps, sprawly and drawly and cool, seemed filled with sleepy
confidence.
Well, he's been here before, done all that on-the-brink-of-history stuff in
Athens. He entered the same eight events there, and won six gold medals and
two bronzes. He knows the rhythm of making history, now all he has to do is
the making. So naturally, the only helpful thing to do is to deny that any
such thought ever entered his head.
“I'm just doing what I have to do, preparing as best I can to do the best I
can. I haven't spoken about breaking any records. Only my coach and I know
what my goals are.” Pardon me, Mikey, but I think about a billion others
have a pretty fair idea as well. But still, whatever helps. It's a hard load
he's picking up; let him carry it as best he can.
He dealt with the usual questions about drugs. “The only person I can control
is myself.” He said that he had never gone into a race fearing defeat, even
when there was every chance of losing. “I just like to race. I like
challenges.” That's the way it is with some people; a task is only
attractive if it is impossible or, at best, desperately forbidding.
He was asked about the problems of a morning schedule and then, at last, he
turned into an aquatic Clint. “Morning, afternoon, evening, midday, midnight
- I'll be ready to swim whenever I have to,” he said.
There were always an awful lot of bad guys lined up against Clint, and they
never had a chance. The only problem is that this is reality, or at least
sport. And that means that the only person Phelps can control is himself,
which means that he'll be seriously fast. So let's give him a Clint line to
sign off with, accompanied by a hard look from narrowed eyes. “I'm faster
than you'll ever live to be.” Eight times?
Open warfare making its welcome return to the water
The open water swim is back as an Olympic event for the first time in more
than 100 years and Britons have excellent chances in both the men's and the
women's ten-kilometre event. It's a hell of a thing: ten kilometres of
unheated water, no wall to help you with an almighty push every two dozen
strokes and competitors all around you. This is swimming as a contact sport.
In fact, it's my idea of what swimming should be all about - a bloody great
stretch of water to cross and first one home is a hero.
Cassie Patten is swimming for Britain in the women's event. “I work on a
three-strikes rule,” she said. “If they do it once, it's an accident. If
they do it twice, I think, ‘Hmm.' If they do it a third time, I give 'em one
back.” She added, perhaps unnecessarily: “I'm a big girl and I can look
after myself.” She was a close second in the World Championships in Seville,
Spain earlier this year.
David Davies was second in the men's event at the same championships. He, too,
lost on the touch, and that after being pushed into a marker-buoy by the
eventual winner and forced to lapse into breaststroke for a few yards. “You
get the odd fist in your face,” he said. “You just have to face it, get out
and get your hands dirty. It's part of the sport, fists are going to fly,
it's up close and personal. I enjoy it. It's the hardest thing I've done -
just trying to swim a straight line without a blue line on the bottom of the
river.”
Davies hopes to win the race from the front, out of the turbulence and away
from the fists. There is a savage beauty about this event and if I get into
trouble in this city, I know I can rely on Cassie Patten to help me out.
The Perils of Paula continue to run and run . . .
Every week, The Perils of Pauline ran in the cinemas early in the
previous century. Every week, Pauline was menaced by pirates, or Indians, or
lashed to the railway track, the train hurtling towards her and then - then
you had to wait until the next week to see if she escaped. I think I am
giving little away if I tell you she always did. And now we have, in quick
succession, two more riveting episodes in the nation's favourite drama-queen
serial, The Perils of Paula.
Hardly had we recovered from the tale that Paula Radcliffe - already suffering
from a stress fracture of the femur, an important bone for a marathon runner
- had been bitten by a poisonous spider, then we learn that God has sent her
a typhoon. Is there no end to this poor woman's suffering?
She is confined to her hotel in Macau because of the storm that hit there and
Hong Kong and stuck on the running machine at this, the critical point in
her rehab from the fracture (and the spider-bite). We old Hong Kong hands
are tempted to snort here - it's only the No8, it's not a real typhoon - but
all the same, the timing is not great.
But anyway, that misses the point. There are no small disasters in Paula's
life, whether she is cracking up in the streets of Athens, or storming to
victory despite a public pitstop, in London, or being oppressed by drugs
cheats, or losing and getting a public bollocking from her husband, the
egregious Gary Lough.
All of which suggests that Radcliffe has a highly developed taste for playing
the victim. Perhaps she does, but most full-time victims give up and blame
others for absolutely everything. Radcliffe has twice run the New York City
Marathon in the circumstances of the most ferocious head-to-head competition
and her spirit prevailed on both occasions. She is a victim with a profound
love of battle.
But on we march to a dreadful day of reckoning in Beijing. I fear that the
gods have yet to finish their sport with Paula.
Neil, London
No skill? I guess you never trained for a high-level competition. My son was at school with Mike, not the snarky "Mikey" please, and he was obviously above the rest for his interest and devotion to his sport. No, he's not saving the world, but he's an inspiration to the kids in the US.
Patricia , Towson. Maryland, USA
Greatest human being that ever lived? Come on. I'll stretch to accept his consideration as ONE of the greatest sportsmen, but please sit back down, Mr Barnes. You are a fine sports writer, but there is a world beyond where greatness is measured in lives saved and worlds changed, not laps of a pool.
Chris, Worthing, England
'the greatest human that ever lived'?? Please !!!!
I'm sure he (and all Olympians) train their collective butts off but, let's be honest, it literally isn't rocket science - the gun goes and you swim/run as fast as you can for the required distance. Physically hard but no skill needed...
Neil, London,