MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA -- There is a simple explanation for why Michael Phelps was able to break five world records and win seven gold medals this past week at the FINA World Championships. It seems obvious looking back, but it took one of the most astonishing seven-day stretches in the history of sports for the picture to come completely into focus.
Phelps has become - physically and emotionally - a man.
When he was winning medals left and right at the Olympics in Athens in 2004, it was easy to overlook that, in many ways, he was still just a precocious teenager. Phelps still lived at home in Rodgers Forge, still needed his meals cooked for him, his laundry done, and he still needed his mother to wake him in the morning and make sure he got out of bed and off to practice on time.
It's a different story now. Debbie Phelps, the principal at Windsor Mill Middle School, said yesterday that, before the world championships, she hadn't seen her son since January at a swim meet in Long Beach, Calif.
"I don't know how he's training. I don't know how he's eating. I don't know how he's sleeping," she said. "I come as a spectator. But it's very important for me to be here for him."
Like every college-age person, Phelps, 21, needed to figure out how to handle the world on his own. After moving to Ann Arbor, Mich., and buying a home after the Olympics, he learned through trial and error how to accomplish basic tasks such as washing dishes, making meals and getting to the pool on time. And when things didn't go smoothly - like the time he nearly flooded his kitchen with bubbles after putting hand soap in his dishwasher - he learned from those experiences.
"My mom has done an unbelievable job raising me into the person I am today," Phelps said. "But I've also learned so much from being out on my own. I've had to make decisions and juggle things and not rely on her."
Phelps still made it a point to make eye contact with his mother after every race this week. He always knew where she was sitting.
"As a parent, you instill values in your children," said Debbie Phelps, with tears welling in her eyes, shortly after her son set his fifth world record of the week while winning the 400-meter individual medley yesterday. "You only hope when they go off on their own that they remain embedded in their hearts. I think they are with Michael. I think everything went pretty well."
