Phelps Speaks
For your reading pleasure, a brief transcription of Michael Phelps following tonight's swim in the heats of the 200-meter butterfly. All the questions were about the 4x100-meter freestyle relay.
"You could tell from my reaction that it was fun," Phelps said. "I definitely don't think I've ever sort of celebrated that much after a race in my life. We were talking this morning back in the village about that race was better than the 800 free in Athens [gold medal-winning 4x200 freestyle relay]. As a whole, five of the teams broke the world record. If you think about it, we broke the world record by four seconds and won by nine one hundredths of a second.
"That was a pretty intense race, a pretty fun race. And I'm glad I could be a part of it."
You didn't play team sports much. Is it fun to be part of a team: "I guess growing up, I did play some team sports, but nothing really major. The relays are the funnest events. Going up there with four guys, but you're really one. We all have to swim the perfect race. We swam that perfect race this morning."
Have you seen the pictures of you celebrating?: "I started laughing. They were showing the replay and I was stretching back in the warmup pool area. And I just started cracking up, with mine and Garrett's reaction. I let out a pretty fierce yell. It just shows how emotional that race was, and how excited we were."
On Jason Lezak: "He swam an amazing race."
You always knew others were going to have to help you if you were going to win everything ... "That showed it. That showed it. We had to do everything as a team to win that race, and we did."
By
Barry Svrluga
|
August 11, 2008; 8:47 AM ET
| Category:
Swimming
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Posted by: Jared in Shanghai | August 11, 2008 10:06 AM
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If you have chances to talk to more Chinese, you would not believe how much Michael Phelps is adored in China. My mom, a Chinese housewife says, every time she watches Michael, she just wants to pat his head (an action for the Chinese elderly to show their fondness of the young), because he is “so adorable”. I think the reason of Michael’s popularity in China should be easily understood. When you see someone like Michael, who is amazingly talented, and yet so genuinely humble and friendly, and achieves every medal through years of hard training, how can you not love him?
Believe it or not, the image of the US that the true athletes Kobe and Michael project to the world through their games is much more powerful and appealing than anything else.