What makes Michael Phelps a great swimmer?
Michael Phelps is to many people the greatest Olympian ever because he has won so many gold medals. Being an Olympic swimmer, Phelps has won more gold medals than any other Olympian in history. Here is a young man who is so talented and is such a powerhouse in his sport that no one can touch him. How did he become so good and how does he keep on winning so many gold medals?
It has gotten to the point where now if there is any sort of swimming contest that has Phelps in it, the other swimmers can only fight for second place. So the race then becomes between those who can get the silver medal because the mighty American guarantees winning gold. It essentially becomes a race between Michael Phelps and himself, he doesn’t care about the rest of the swimmers; he is after breaking his own best time. He is always just trying to break his own world records because when someone gets to be as good as Phelps all you can do is try and break your own records. That is until someone new comes along who blows everyone out of the water. It can happen, because it happened before Michael Phelps came on the scene. Everyone was like what happened here, who is this guy? The same thing happened when Usain Bolt, that insanely fast sprinter, came on the scene; he left everybody eating a trail of his dust.
Wikipedia says this about Phelps’ records, “He has won 14 career Olympic gold medals, the most by any Olympian. As of August 2, 2009, Phelps has broken thirty-seven world records in swimming,” (http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Michael_phelps). Let’s just read that again, he has broken thirty-seven world records in swimming. Now how exactly does one break 37-world record in swimming, I am guessing most of them were his own records that he kept breaking over and over again. The question to ask here is how and why is Michael Phelps such a phenomenal swimmer?
It seems that some people are more suited to being world champions and Olympic gold medallists than others. Genetics plays a huge part in it, because no matter how much us normal folk train, we will probably never get to the level that Michael Phelps enjoys. So is that it alone; is it just getting the right start out of the gate in life, surely it must be something more. There is probably a lot of training involved as well in the equation. It cannot be simply that with good genes Phelps was able to become such a fantastic swimmer. Of course the right genes helped, they made him naturally more suited to becoming an Olympic champion but he must have gone through the world’s most gruelling training regime in order to get to where he is today. I can just imagine his parents and coaches telling him to do another length of the pool when he desperately wanted to go play with his friends. They probably told him that all this training will pay off in the future. I bet he didn’t believe them at the time and couldn’t stand the constant training but now that his face is on all kinds of products all over the world, he probably believes them now.
Besides the fantastic genes and the constant and backbreaking training, luck played a big part in him becoming a champion. If it weren’t for luck he probably would be doing something else with his life right now. Just imagine if he would have been born in another country where sport is not that highly favoured, he might be a schoolteacher or a bus driver instead of the world’s greatest Olympian. There might be hundreds of Michael Phelps or Usain Bolts that just don’t get the opportunity to make it to the big leagues because of some problem or the other. The developing countries of the world are probably full of people languishing in poor circumstances who never get a chance to pursue sports as a career because of the lack of money involved. It just isn’t a viable option for them. Michael Phelps should thank Lady Luck for the big part she played in his life.
Tags: