Four years on from Athens, Michael Phelps will arrive in Beijing poised to make Olympic history - and join the select few whose feats see them transcend their sports.Mark Spitz, who set the Olympic gold standard with seven swimming triumphs in Munich in 1972, predicted Phelps not only will break the record, but do it in spectacular style. "I would expect that a month from now you're going to see him win by margins and set times that have never been done before," Spitz said. "He'll be unbelievable." The reason, Spitz said, is that Phelps is "as experienced, and, in some ways, more experienced than I was going into doing this. He won six gold medals (in 2004), and I only won two the Olympics before I won seven."
Phelps will swim the same events in Beijing that he tackled in Athens: the 200m and 400m individual medleys, the 100m and 200m butterflies the 200m freestyle, and likely the three relays.
In Athens, he won all his individual events except the 200 free, in which he took bronze behind Thorpe and Dutch star Pieter van den Hoogenband.
Phelps has since set the world record and won a world title in that event, and Spitz pointed to that progress as an indicator of Phelps's greatness.
"When I think about Michael not only swimming events that he holds the world record in, but also challenging himself in events that he is the second-fastest or third-fastest in the world and putting them into his programme, that is more than I did," Spitz said.
While Speedo's million-dollar offer for a record-equalling seven golds still stands, and Phelps reached the magic number of seven triumphs at last year's World Championships, the swimmer still rarely speaks of the goal as a whole - and never without prompting.
"You guys talk about it," he says. "I don't talk about it. I just get in the water and compete." That singlemindedness of purpose makes Phelps a fearsome rival in the pool. Mentor Bob Bowman, who has coached Phelps since he was 11, recalls realising even then that "it was just apparent he was going to do whatever it took."
Going into his third Olympic Games, Phelps now has not only a fierce competitiveness, but also a solid understanding of how best to harness it.
"In 2004, every race, I would go for it," Phelps said. "I have been able to learn over the past two years to conserve and try to save up a little bit, because my event programme is so long."
