THE DIET
Michael Phelps generally consumes 12,000 calories a day, compared with the average male intake of 2,000. A typical Phelps meal is something like:

Breakfast Bowl of porridge, three fried eggs, cheese, lettuce, tomato, fried onion and mayonnaise sandwiches (white bread), five-egg omelette, grits, three slices of French toast, three chocolate-chip pancakes, two cups of coffee

Lunch High-protein pasta serving, two ham and cheese with mayonnaise sandwiches, various energy drinks

Dinner More pasta, pizza, energy drinks

THE COACH
A 12-year-old Phelps had just had a fight with another young swimmer and trashed the locker room when he first met Bob Bowman. The pair had an immediate argument. As Phelps would recall: ‘He’d seen me at the pool, running around and being benched, and said, “There’s no way I’m training him. That kid is uncoachable”.’ But Bowman changed his mind when he spotted his potential. They continued having arguments - ‘I had a mouth on me and my own way of doing things, and I gave Coach hell,’ says Phelps - and the swimmer contemplated quitting in autumn 2000, but they are still together

THE FAMILY
Phelps’s father, Fred, a Maryland state trooper, walked out on the family when Michael was seven, and the rift between the two has not yet fully healed. In the first few years after his father left, Phelps was bullied at school and treated for attention deficit disorder with Ritalin. His mother, Debbie, stopped him from going off the rails and was responsible for submitting him to Bowman’s coaching programme.

His older sisters, Whitney and Hilary were both talented swimmers. Whitney just missed out on the US team for the 1996 Olympics before retiring with a back injury. She later admitted to an eating disorder

THE SAVIOUR
There could have been no history-making bid for eight gold medals for Phelps without Jason Lezak. The Americans were not favourites for the 4x100m freestyle relay and, going into the final leg, Lezak had half a second to make up on 100m world record-holder Alain Bernard of France. ‘I knew I was going to have to swim out of my mind,’ said Lezak. He did, pipping Bernard by less than a tenth of a second. ‘His last 50m were absolutely incredible,’ Phelps said. ‘He had a perfect finish.’ Thanks to Lezak, Phelps has the chance to achieve the perfect Games

THE MUSIC
Like most swimmers, Phelps blocks out the sideshow of the crowd and other races by listening to his iPod. He’s a rap fan and the song that launched him to six golds in Athens was Overnight Celebrity by Twista. This time around, he has been geeing himself up by listening to Go Getta by Young Jeezy. With lines such as, ‘You in da club you see a bad bitch, point her out/Yeah, you’re damn right, I’ma/Go getta, go getta, go getta’, it's probably not one you’d want your kids downloading

THE BODY AND THE SUIT
Phelps’s lungs pump 30 litres of blood to his muscles, nearly twice the amount of an average man. At the same time, his immense fitness levels, physiology and metabolism are responsible for a lactic acid level that is about a third of the average swimmer’s. He has broad shoulders and a long torso but comparatively short legs, an ideal combination for propelling himself through the water with minimal resistance. This is accentuated by his paddle-size hands and flipper-style size14 feet. On top of all this, he wears and was involved in the development of the state-of-the-art Speedo swimsuit (Nasa did its bit too), which claims to reduce drag in the water. ‘I feel like a rocket off the wall,’ he says on Speedo’s website

THE MONEY
Phelps’s sponsor, Speedo, manufacturer of the LZR Racer suit, put up a $1m bonus in Athens four years ago for him to match Mark Spitz’s haul of seven gold medals. He failed then - ‘only’ six golds – but appears likely to clean up this time. The American is believed to earn about $5m a year, thanks to endorsement deals with Visa, Omega and Matsunichi, which makes MP3 players, as well as with Speedo. His success in Beijing will increase his global marketability, particularly in Asia. However, he is still likely to lag behind Tiger Woods, left (said to have banked £50m last year), and Roger Federer (£15m in 2007)

THE FUTURE
Phelps will drop most, if not all, of the events he has swum in Beijing. The first to go will be the 400m medley, a gruelling event, but he has other targets and has declared that he will race on until London 2012 in different events, including:
400m freestyleThe world record has been held by Ian Thorpe at 3min 40.08sec since 2002. The nearest anyone has got is 3:41.86, with which Park Tae-Hwan, of Korea, became Olympic champion. Phelps has never raced a 400m fully rested, but he is the fifth-fastest American ever, at 3:46.73
100m and 200m backstrokePhelps is the third-fastest ever in the 200m, behind the men who took gold and silver here in Beijing, Ryan Lochte and Aaron Peirsol. In the 100m, Phelps is fifth-fastest ever, within half a second of the world record
100m freestyleComing into these Games, the world record stood at 47.50sec. Phelps clocked 47.51 leading off the United States’ 4x100m relay in the midst of a monumental programme. The world record was lowered to 47.05 by Australia’s Eamon Sullivan and the Olympic title went to Alain Bernard in 47.21